


stop the world, i want to get off with you

by legendaryguitarman



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 03:52:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10845915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendaryguitarman/pseuds/legendaryguitarman
Summary: having a string of one-night stands with kris isn't exactly on baekhyun's to-do list, but neither is falling in love, so really, it's not the most ridiculous thing he's ever done.





	1. Chapter 1

**vi.**  
  
  
“It’s raining outside,” said Baekhyun. “Don’t forget to take the umbrella.”  
  
Just days ago, he’d lectured Kris on being so forgetful and leaving his shit all over the floor and all Kris had done was say Okay in that sort of dumb puppy way of his, stupid gummy grin and stupid earnest eyes that couldn’t fake the fact that he was so damn in love with Baekhyun, which had obviously proved worthwhile because once again, Kris had forgotten to take the umbrella with him. He was about to leave—from the front door this time, not through some ninja bullshit out the window, cartwheeling and backflipping out onto the street from the third floor of their apartment block—and Baekhyun was writing up his dreaded dissertation, hoping there was the off-chance that Kris would be smart enough to not go outside in, like, the This-Must-Be-a-Sign-That-God-is-Angry-torrential rain wearing his expensive Armani suit. And then, he remembered that Kris was about as competent as a salted slug and could barely function as a Normal Human Being, and peered over the edge of his laptop lest his boyfriend drown in Noah’s Ark: Electric Boogaloo.  
  
“Oh, right,” said Kris. “Thanks.”  
  
He hadn’t changed at all from their first meeting, Baekhyun thought as Kris, instead of walking out the door, started to walk towards Baekhyun with a goofy smile on his face, crushing the cigarette between his fingers on their hardwood floor underneath his shoes (fuck, it’d be a bitch to hire someone to clean that off, but Baekhyun supposed that was what Kris’s bank account was for) so he could grab the red umbrella. He was still a strange, strange person; he was a walking contradiction in itself because who the hell wore designer suits with old, muddy Chuck Taylors just ‘cause he didn’t want his shoes to get dirty on the job, and who the hell smoked in an apartment block with a non-smoking policy, and who the hell looked that cool shortening their lifespan by five years and increasing their risk of lung cancer by fifteen percent? _How difficult is it to be just normal?_ thought Baekhyun, even as Kris stood beside him by the kitchen table, looking as out of place as he could in the white colour of their walls and their beige curtains and the tall cactus growing in the corner, and somehow looking like he belonged because he was, to Baekhyun, home.  
  
“What,” Baekhyun said, trying to pretend like he didn’t really care and typed a few more words into his laptop, knowing that he would just rewrite it all later.  
  
“I forgot something,” said Kris, and _Yeah,_ Baekhyun wanted to say, _your fucking sanity maybe_ , except that Kris was leaning down to smooth back the messy cowlicks of Baekhyun’s hair so he could drop a kiss on Baekhyun’s forehead. He looked immensely pleased with himself when the words were stuck in Baekhyun’s throat and Baekhyun blushed, pink on his cheeks, and punched Kris on the arm weakly.  
  
“I’m so in love with you,” Kris murmured.  
  
Their apartment had huge windows that spanned from the floor to the ceiling and a pair of sliding doors that made way for a balcony overlooking the streets of the city. The curtains were pinned back neatly and the sun shone through the glass, making Kris’s eyes look soft and pretty, bathed in the warm light, and there it was, this crackle of want and desire and love between them that Baekhyun craved for day in and day out, only that he didn’t like to bring himself to admit it because Kris already had an overinflated ego and he didn’t need more encouragement to make his head bigger, but he was certain that Kris knew anyway.  
  
“You told me that literally the first time we met. How could I forget?” said Baekhyun, and he tipped his head back so Kris could kiss him on the lips, sweetly, and then not-so-sweetly as he caught Baekhyun’s lower lip between his teeth and tugged to make him lightheaded, like sugar running through his veins. Kris’s glasses fell crooked on the bridge of his nose as he tilted his head, and Baekhyun reached up so he could put them back in place.  
  
“So I did,” Kris said. “I still do. I still love you.”  
  
He waited, and Baekhyun sighed.  
  
“Fine, I love you too,” he replied begrudgingly. And really, he decided, it wasn’t the most difficult thing he’d ever done, especially when Kris’s smile made it kind of worth it. He didn’t think he could ever forget the day when Kris made things worth doing for the sake of his smile.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 **i.**  
  
  
 _Carpe diem,_ they say. Seize the day.  
  
Kind of hard to do, Baekhyun thought, when his day began in the middle of the night in a club with pounding music and possibly the shittiest lighting and the worst case of How Many People Does It Take To Fix This Lightbulb? ever. The only thing he could really seize was the copious amount of ass twerking right in his face and as much as he appreciated fine booty, he’d rather not.  
  
To clarify, he wasn’t here out of choice. If he’d had a choice, he would be someplace where he wouldn’t risk contracting herpes by the end of the night, but Chanyeol had forced him to come along like the pathetic, weak-minded man he was because he conformed to society’s conventions and listened to mainstream pop music and had his lab report on his desk back at home, waiting to be handed in on Monday. _Come on,_ Chanyeol had said, _live a little!_ , and whilst Baekhyun was perfectly fine with just living a tiny amount—breathing, eating, shitting, sleeping—Chanyeol had dragged him here, had convinced him to come like he did with all the stupid things that Baekhyun seemed to end up doing all the time. He’d promised Baekhyun that he’d be the Best Wingman Ever and hook him up with some hot piece of ass to get him through the night, except what Baekhyun always seemed to forget was that Chanyeol was a huge, lying mass of excrement. A colossal asshole of gargantuan proportions. A Big Fat Fucking Liar. Aforementioned Big Fat Liar was currently doing nothing to be even a Moderately Good Wingman, let alone be the Best, since he seemed to have the same physical adherence in a club as lube, leaving Baekhyun’s side from the second Baekhyun’d been stopped by the bouncer to show some ID. Damn his foetal looks.  
  
The problem was not that Baekhyun was annoyed that Chanyeol was much more interested in sucking face with the owl-eyed kid, who looked way too illegal to be in a place like this, lurking in the corner and being uncomfortable with all the sweaty people and the horrible dancing and the overly-tall, overly-enthusiastic boy trying to hit on him. The problem was that Baekhyun could think of a million more things that he would rather be doing right now, like marathonning through Game of Thrones, and great, if the boy stopped trying to shoot lasers out of his eyes at everything that breathed for long enough that Chanyeol would get tonight, but it didn’t do much good for Baekhyun, who could not comprehend why Chanyeol had taken him out tonight. Chanyeol had always been into the whole relationship thing, like, _ANNIVERSARIES!!!! DATING!!!! BOYFRIENDS!!!! WOO!!!_ whereas Baekhyun was more of a hit-it-and-quit-it guy on the odd occasion when he actually felt like hitting it and quitting it.  
  
Generally speaking, up until now, the most romantic moment of Baekhyun’s life had been waking up to the smell of burning eggs from the kitchen and shuffling in with his slippers, only to see Chanyeol sheepishly grinning at him and trying to hide the pan of water-soaked ‘charred’ (as he’d called it) eggs behind his back. It was the sentiment that counted though; the thought that Chanyeol had actually woken up before three pm and tried to do domestic housework for once was touching and Baekhyun had gently pried the pan away and cooked a proper breakfast. It had been nothing fancy but at least it’d been edible, and he’d wondered why Chanyeol was his best friend. Regretted it, really, but it was too late now and he supposed that they got along well and Chanyeol made for a great gaming partner during TF2 tournaments against Jongdae if nothing else. So that was the extent of his lovelife; he wasn’t big on the whole dating thing, mostly because he didn’t have time to go out and hook up with people in favour of Not Failing Biology and becoming the next star of Breaking Bad, but like every other person in the world, there was a part of him that dreamed of falling in love.  
  
Which was exactly the moment, as he was about to leave this dump, when he saw _him._  
  
It stunk in here, of sweat and alcohol and tomorrow morning’s regret, and it was so dark that Baekhyun could barely see a single thing with these shitty strobe lights, except for _him,_ sitting across the room by the bar and looking totally and completely perfect. There was just something utterly charming about it, about him, something quaintly like a 1960s indie film, the entire premise of falling in love with a stranger at first sight and living happily ever after.  
  
Maybe he was kidding himself into thinking that this could be something because he’d been alone for so long, and c’mon, there had to be something special about this when he had chosen a single guy out of a crowd of so many. He felt as if, for a moment, that he was living in another dimension: the fourth, a plane where he couldn’t take his eyes off this tall, blonde paradoxical enigma of a man, sipping at his appletini and looking as out of place as anyone could. There was a weird thing about him that drew Baekhyun closer, that made Baekhyun want to maybe lick up his neck and kiss him hard and dirty, because from ten feet away, Baekhyun could tell that he had power. Control. And god, that was sexy. He was ridiculously hot with long legs that went on for miles, although Baekhyun couldn’t say the same for his fashion: his left leg was crossed over the right, clad in skin-tight leather trousers, and he was wearing a low-cut wifebeater and a red flannel shirt over it with a denim jacket. His hair had that badboy look, carelessly messy, but every cowlick and outward curl was carefully done, like he’d spent hours spraying product in and blow-drying it and mussing it up, trying so hard to fit in, only that he ended up looking so unnoticeable that he was noticeable, sticking out like a goddamn cliché.  
  
Baekhyun made his way over, pushing past the masses that were grinding and humping each other, and from the corner of his eye, he could see Owl Boy apparently starting to give into Chanyeol’s non-existent charms as Chanyeol slipped a hand into the back pocket of his jeans and not-so-inconspicuously squeezed a handful of his ass. The boy tipped his head back, half of his own accord and half because Chanyeol was tugging at his hair, and okay, Baekhyun begrudgingly admitted that Chanyeol had outdone himself this time, but Foetus Bitch was nothing compared to the man now sitting in front of Baekhyun, regal and tall and so fucking sexy.  
  
Somewhere within the minute that it’d taken to get from one side of the bar to the other, the man had whipped out a book from nowhere and started reading after getting bored with people having public sex and people trying to have public sex and people throwing up over their own shoes. It was an odd sight—Haruki Murakami in the middle of a club, Norwegian Wood with dubstep booming in the background, and yet Baekhyun would make sure that he wouldn’t be bored by the end of the night. His leather pants clashed horribly with his plaid shirt, but Baekhyun knew a few ways to make it look better: on the ground in a pile, replaced with his mouth around his cock. There was no question about it. This boy was intriguing, and Baekhyun wanted him.  
  
“Hey,” he said casually, just loud enough to be heard over the music once it lulled and changed from one track to the other.  
  
The boy looked up, startled, and something flashed through his eyes before it settled, deep and black in his irides. Closer up, Baekhyun could see his features more clearly; fuck, he was a sexy hipster, and sexy hipsters were all the rage nowadays—he had sharp eyes framed by thick eyebrows and a small mouth, which all came together strangely well, and for some reason, Baekhyun felt like he’d seen him before. There was something about him that Baekhyun recognised, but Baekhyun was certain that if he knew someone as hot as him, he would’ve definitely remembered them. Perhaps Baekhyun had passed by him on the street once or served him pizza. If it were important, Baekhyun figured that he would’ve remembered.  
  
“Uh, hey,” said the boy, a little awkwardly as he set his book down. His voice was deep and husky, even deeper than Chanyeol’s, and it made Baekhyun shiver. “You here by yourself?”  
  
“Nah, my dumb friend left me to hit on underage minors,” Baekhyun said jokingly, and the other boy smiled slightly. Baekhyun liked the way he smiled. A tiny twitch of his lips, but his eyes curved up into crescents and it made Baekhyun grin himself. “I’m Baekhyun. And you are…?”  
  
“Kris,” said the boy.  
  
Ooh, a foreign name. Those foreign types were always exotic and sexy and a little bit kinky, which Baekhyun was more than okay with, unless his secret kink was, like, whipping out a Kafka novel whilst Baekhyun sucked his cock. Baekhyun was not-so-okay with that. If he were into daddy fetishes and some spanky-butt action, then Baekhyun would be happy to indulge him.  
  
“You’re here alone and bored, right?” Baekhyun said, his voice dropping low and sultry. “I think I might be able to fix that.”  
  
He leaned forward, leaned closer, and gazed at Kris through his half-lidded eyes that he’d lined and smudged earlier with black kohl. Kris swallowed visibly, enraptured. He let his hand dance across the table surface until it reached Kris’s arm, and then he curled his thin fingers around Kris’s wrist, hiding his surprise at how big Kris’s hands were compared to his. The fleeting thought of those long, slim pressing against his skin, dancing patterns on his thighs, suddenly appeared in his mind, and he wet his lips as he anticipated this even more.  
  
Seduction had always been a game to Baekhyun, but he did it with such finesse that one might think it was an art instead; the way he bit at his lower lip coyly, the offer silent on his tongue, and the way he pressed his fingers into Kris’s skin like a taunt were all carefully calculated. He could smell Kris’s cologne over the sweat permeating the air of the club, a scent that was distinctly boyish and musky and eclectically addictive, and he could see, could feel the veins running up Kris’s hands and arms underneath his fingertips, streets of blue-green under his pale skin. It promised strength and power and so much that he could do to Baekhyun. Kris was a challenge and Baekhyun wasn’t about to lose. Seduction had always been a game, and he had always won.  
  
“Okay,” said Kris hoarsely, and then, louder, firmer: “Okay.”  
  
Baekhyun quickly looked in the direction he’d last seen Chanyeol. Chanyeol was still making out with the other boy, and perhaps more than just that as he fumbled with the boy’s jeans, trying to tug them down and eventually giving up, pushing their hips together and rutting against him. That was a good sign; it meant that the apartment was still empty and if Chanyeol decided to have his disgusting vanilla sex later, he would have to find another place to do it.  
  
“My apartment’s free,” said Baekhyun. “Unless you have other ideas?”  
  
“I don’t,” said Kris. He smirked, and Baekhyun’s body flushed with heat.  
  
“Don’t worry,” he said, smiling at Kris and grabbing his hand as he hopped off the stool by the bar and led him towards the exit. “I have plenty.”  
  
Which wasn’t a complete lie, he thought as he glanced at Kris, nearly mesmerised by how gorgeous he looked in the darkness of the night, the streetlights and the soft glow from the moon illuminating all the right places.  
  
It was just that all of those ideas happened to involve Kris getting naked, him getting naked, and their dicks.  
  
  
  
  
Luckily for them, Baekhyun’s apartment was on the first floor of his block and only ten minutes away from the city centre, which meant that when Baekhyun had finally reached his front door, searching for his keys in his pockets, Kris was already getting antsy. Throughout the journey home, Baekhyun had said lowly, barely in a whisper, all the things he wanted Kris to do to him, all the things he wanted to do to Kris. _I want to suck your cock, I want you to fuck my mouth so hard that I can feel your cock for days, so the only thing I can think about is your cock on my tongue; I want you to fuck me so hard, I want you to make me scream, I want you._ And none of those were lies. Baekhyun had never felt this level of attraction for someone else before, a magnetism so strong that it hummed and throbbed in the air like they were breathing it into their lungs, making them needy for more and more and more, and exhaling it again in a desperate cycle.  
  
Baekhyun was smart, borderline manipulative if not for the fact that he only used his superpowers for good, like seducing hot boys into his bed. He knew how people worked and he knew what to do to push their buttons. Most of all, though, he knew himself, and that was his shield that let him wield the power as he finally managed to get the door open and shoved Kris up against the wall. He knew that power made him heady and drunk and he wanted a challenge, wanted to see what it would take for Kris to lose control because Kris exuded sex and dominance and taking it away from him made Baekhyun’s cock strain in his pants as he crushed their lips together.  
  
He had his eyes open, watching as Kris drew closer and tipped his head just to the side, the dim light casting shadows beneath his cheekbones and into the dips of his collarbones. Baekhyun’s chest tightened inexplicably and he kissed Kris, almost violently if it weren’t for his hand around the back of Kris’s head, buried in his hair and fingers running through the soft, blonde locks, and when he pulled back for air, Kris chased his mouth, eager but not quite desperate, which meant that he wasn’t so far gone as to become desirous, but there was certainly a need for something between them. His lips were starting to become swollen and the light from the hallway made them look enticing, slick and shiny, and Baekhyun kissed him again, leading him to the bedroom. It suddenly seemed so far; they stumbled over their feet as Kris refused to stop kissing him, sucking and biting at his lips. Kris’s mouth was hot and it felt like flames were licking into Baekhyun’s mouth, electrifying, and Baekhyun knew that by the end of the night, he would be able to test just how good Kris’s control was.  
  
It’d only been an hour or so and already, Baekhyun was pushing Kris back onto the bed, smiling down salaciously as Kris fell on his back, landing with a thump. He crawled on top of Kris, straddling his hips with his legs bracketing either side of Kris’s thighs, and Kris brought a hand up to press to the small of his spine, holding him steady. The thoughtful gesture made Baekhyun’s heart skip a little and whilst gentle was nice, carnal was even better. Somewhere within him, he wondered if this innate desire was more than simply just lust. He didn’t know how to explain it, why he wanted to feel Kris’s heat on his skin and Kris’s body pressed into his—had an inkling that it was probably something like he was easy with piss-low standards—but there was just something about Kris that made Baekhyun want him so badly. He knew Kris could easily dominate him, but he wasn’t and he was letting Baekhyun take the reins. One taste of Kris and Baekhyun was intrigued; two, and Baekhyun was addicted.  
  
“Hey, indulge me for a sec,” he said, leaning down to pull the hem of Kris’s shirt to his arms. Kris’s chest was broad and firm, the muscle hard beneath his skin, and Baekhyun marvelled in awe, silently thanking Chanyeol for taking him out tonight. “This is gonna sound stupid, but just tell me three things about yourself. Just so I don’t feel, like, easy for jumping into bed with you. Pretend that we’ve already had our traditional three dates.”  
  
Kris grinned despite himself, panting into Baekhyun’s mouth as Baekhyun dipped down to press a bruising kiss to his lips. He sucked Baekhyun’s bottom lip between his, nipping at it with his teeth, and his hands dropped to Baekhyun’s hips as he pressed his fingers into the sharp jut of bone.  
  
“I can’t say that I’ve ever met someone like you before,” he said. Baekhyun just smiled at him as he tugged Kris’s shirt off, throwing it behind him. He grasped his own shirt and pulled it off, revealing his skin inch by inch. Like he’d said—seduction was a game, and this was only the start. Kris gaped at him for a second, and then pressed his lips together in a thin line, the arousal clear in his blown eyes. “Okay, I—uh, my shirt is from American Apparel.”  
  
Honest to god, Baekhyun didn’t mean to, but he laughed, and Kris looked kind of adorably sexy as he pouted, slightly miffed.  
  
“The whole point of this,” said Baekhyun, “is to avoid the awkward small talk. Tell me three of your deepest, darkest secrets. Y’know, so it feels like we’ve bonded sufficiently before sleeping with each other. And if you tell me something good, I’ll be sure to make it worthwhile.”  
  
He ended with a swipe of his tongue over his lips and trailed a finger down the column of Kris’s neck, following with a slow lick down his throat and a particularly hard suck on the spot next to his thick jugular, which made him let out a guttural moan. He was sensitive, Baekhyun noticed, and that was perfect because it made things all that much easier for him to take Kris apart, like the first loose thread of yarn. Now, all he had to do was pull.  
  
“Number one,” Baekhyun said. He undid the button of Kris’s pants and pulled down the zipper, raising his hips just enough so he could tug them down, suddenly finding them completely offensive and blasphemous to his religion of Hot-Boy-ism, no matter how good they looked on Kris’s legs.  
  
Kris’s cock was hard, bulging out of his Calvin Klein briefs, and there was a small damp patch where precome was leaking out, and it made Baekhyun’s own cock throb between his legs, knowing that Kris wanted this as much as he did. He slid down so he could spread Kris’s legs apart, pushing his thighs away and dropping a kiss there, and sat between them on his haunches. Kris’s breath hitched as he stared at Baekhyun with glazed eyes, bringing a hand down to tangle his fingers in Baekhyun’s hair. Hair-pulling wasn’t one of Baekhyun’s kinks, but with the way Kris’s nails were scratching lightly against his scalp and twisting a little bit too tight, it was quickly becoming one. Baekhyun hummed contentedly and pulled Kris’s underwear to his knees, and Kris’s cock sprang free, lying up against his abdomen, red and curved and abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous. He was so big, so huge, and Baekhyun’s mouth watered at the thought of being filled by something like that, something so satisfying.  
  
Peering up through his lashes, Baekhyun took Kris’s cock into his hand and curled his fingers around the shaft, feeling it twitch in his hold, and gave Kris an anticipatory lick of his lips. With Baekhyun, what sex was about was the tease, bringing them so close to the edge and intensifying that arousal that their senses were heightened and all they would be able to think about when Baekhyun lowered himself onto their cock, when they jerked off at night to the memory, would be Baekhyun’s parted lips and half-lidded eyes.  
  
“Number one,” Kris repeated, voice strained. Baekhyun gave his cock an experimental stroke, the slide from base to tip made slick by the bead of translucent precome that trickled down the side of the shaft, and Kris suppressed a moan by biting his lip. That wouldn’t do. Baekhyun wanted to hear him unravel.  
  
“I love your eyes.”  
  
Baekhyun raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He dipped down and flicked his tongue against the slit of Kris’s cock, and Kris tipped his head back as a moan rumbled low in his throat, the knuckles of his right hand turning white as he clenched his fist in the sheets beneath them.  
  
“Number two,” said Kris, “I love your fingers and your mouth and that tiny little mole on your upper lip.”  
  
A foreign feeling rose in Baekhyun’s chest. It was warm, unlike the hot arousal that stirred in his gut, and he kept quiet, a part of him wanting to see what Kris would say last.  
  
“Number three,” Kris said, “I think I love you.”  
  
Baekhyun’s fist stuttered around Kris’s cock and he pulled off the tip with a soft _pop_ , staring up at Kris in surprise. “I bet that’s what you say to all the boys to get them into your bed,” he said jokingly.  
  
“No, just you,” said Kris, sounding oddly resolute even though Baekhyun was jerking him off with slow pumps and his cheeks were flushed red. Baekhyun had been with plenty of guys before—more than he’d like to admit, really—and he remembered all the things that they’d murmured into his ear. _I love your ass; your ass takes my cock in so well; you’re just a whore for my cock, aren’t you?_ but none of them had ever confessed their love to him on their first meeting before. This could be one of two things: either Kris was a little deluded since all the blood had rushed to his cock and his brain had turned into a goopy mess or he really meant it. And although Baekhyun knew it was the second first, that there was no way it could be the second, his heart ran faster in his chest and his fingers tightened involuntarily around Kris’s cock, causing him to buck up into Baekhyun’s fist.  
  
He was done with teasing. His entire body flushed with heat, the confession making him sort of giddy and lightheaded, and Kris feathered touches up his body as he sat back up, shucking off his jeans and his pants and reaching over to the top drawer of his dresser. As he fumbled for the bottle of lube and the condoms he kept hidden at the back, he couldn’t get the thought of those words in Kris’s mouth out of his mind, and pressed a kiss to Kris’s lips, tracing the seam of his mouth, unsure if he wanted to swallow down those words or hear them again.  
  
It didn’t take long for him to slick up his fingers, the slippery liquid gleaming on his skin, and to press them inside himself, one by one. Kris’s grip on his hips tightened, digging bruises on his skin, and he exhaled heavily as Baekhyun rode his own fingers, rocking over Kris’s thighs. Baekhyun let his head fall back, baring his neck as sweat ran down his skin, and pulled his fingers out when Kris started to get impatient, wrapping his own fingers around his cock as he jerked off to the sight of Baekhyun stretching himself open.  
  
Baekhyun rolled the latex down the length of Kris’s cock, heavy and throbbing in his hand, and slicked it up, Kris canting his hips up into the circle of Baekhyun’s hand. Kris moaned, an utterly sexy noise from his throat, as Baekhyun lowered himself onto Kris’s cock, feeling it push past his rim millimetre by millimetre, impossibly slowly. He braced himself with his hands on Kris’s chest, feeling it rise and drop as Kris panted and groaned, and Baekhyun was flexible enough to lean down and capture Kris’s lips in a kiss, licking straight into his mouth and sucking on his tongue like he had a point to prove. And he did, he supposed—he wanted to prove that he was worthy, that he was in control, and that he wanted Kris to lose control.  
  
When he fully sank down on Kris’s cock, buried to the hilt, he opened his eyes and Kris was staring straight at him, his eyes black and wide and earnest, and Baekhyun had to look away, unable to hold his gaze. Kris’s stare made his stomach flutter and swoop and it wasn’t supposed to do that. He wasn’t supposed to feel so much for something so little, for something that was supposed to be a one-night stand. That just wasn’t how it was supposed to work. Baekhyun just didn’t do the whole feelings thing and this was weird, the way Kris looked at him and rubbed his thumbs into the dip of Baekhyun’s hips comfortingly as Baekhyun stilled and the way he ran his large hands up Baekhyun’s spine, tracing every bump and jut beneath his fingertips.  
  
“God,” Kris murmured between the desperate kisses Baekhyun was pressing to his lips, “you’re so hot and tight… You’re so hot, Baekhyun, you’re so sexy.” He brought his hands up and pressed them between Baekhyun’s shoulderblades, feathering over the sharp bones beneath pale skin. “You’re so sexy; I wish I could live in this moment forever so I wouldn’t ever have to forget.”  
  
Baekhyun nipped at Kris’s lower lip as he began to lift himself up, and moaned into their kiss when he dropped back down, Kris’s cock filling him up just right as it dragged against his sensitive walls and brushed against his prostate, the angle almost perfect. He started slowly, rocking in Kris’s lap with the aid of Kris driving his hips up, and every thrust was precise and powerful, as if this was a flawless duet with their bodies. Kris’s skin was damp with sweat, the light catching off the droplets that ran down his temple, and god, thought Baekhyun, he knew exactly what Kris meant. Kris was drop-dead gorgeous that it bordered on beautiful, like a painting beneath him, and the image burned into Baekhyun’s brain, making sure that he’d remember it tomorrow and all the days afterwards.  
  
Soon enough, Baekhyun was bouncing frantically in Kris’s lap, the slap of skin against skin resonating in the room, and moaning uncontrollably into Kris’s neck, lips sucking a mark there and then giving up in favour of groaning out Kris’s name and _Fuck me harder, fuck me like you mean it. Fuck me like I’m the only person in the world right now, fuck me like I’m the only person you want to fuck._ Kris had his eyes squeezed shut, his lashes fluttering prettily like he wanted to open them but couldn’t, and his hands fisted themselves in Baekhyun’s hair, tugging slightly to tilt his head up.  
  
“I want to kiss you,” he said, and Baekhyun was more than happy to oblige, pressing their lips together. Kris rubbed his fingers against the nape of Baekhyun’s neck, making him tremble, and licked at the back of his teeth and the palate of his mouth. Baekhyun’s lips felt numb from kissing so much, but he didn’t want to stop, never wanted to stop, and spread his legs wide so he could sink down deeper, so close to the edge already. Sex for him had never been this intense and he wondered if it was just because he hadn’t fucked anyone for so long or if it was because of this beautiful boy beneath him, the boy with a bad fashion sense and gorgeous cheekbones and a chiselled jaw and—  
  
The confession. Just thinking about it made Baekhyun flush and he fucked himself down on Kris’s cock faster to push it out of his mind, to focus on chasing his pleasure. Kris’s fingers were twisting around the strands of his hair and his thrusts were starting to become jerky and sporadic, his breathing becoming heavier and his moans growing louder.  
  
“Are you gonna come,” said Baekhyun, panting into Kris’s mouth as they kissed more sloppily, more desirously with a want for something Baekhyun didn’t even know he had. “With your cock inside me, fucking me like I’m a fucking slut for your cock, ‘cause I don’t want anyone else’s cock but yours to make me come—“  
  
“Yeah,” Kris simply breathed out, and he let out a quiet _Fuck_ as his back arched abruptly and his mouth fell open in a moan, his stomach tensing. Baekhyun kissed him hungrily through his orgasm, still riding on his cock as he spilled inside Baekhyun, and for a moment, Baekhyun wanted feel Kris come inside him, painting his insides with white, but he barely knew this guy and that was just—it was too personal for someone he’d just met and having all these clashing feelings didn’t make sense. He shook his head, brushing away the hair that had matted to his forehead from sweat, and clenched around Kris’s twitching cock as he came, spurting over his fingers of the hand he’d been using to tug on his cock, and let out a soft whine as Kris pulled out and tied off the condom, throwing it into the trashcan with admirable accuracy for someone who had just been moaning Baekhyun’s name.  
  
Baekhyun collapsed into a boneless heap on top of Kris, dropping his head on Kris’s chest. Kris was warm and when he laughed, it sent pleasant vibrations through Baekhyun’s body. Absentmindedly, Baekhyun wondered if this could be something he could get used to. But that wasn’t right. That was nothing but a pipe dream, nothing that could ever happen, and it made Baekhyun’s heart ache a little.  
  
“Hey,” said Kris, his voice all gravelly and still goddamn sexy, “you okay? I didn’t hurt you or anything, right?”  
  
He looked slightly worried, his thumb pressing against Baekhyun’s bottom lip, and Baekhyun just lifted his head to smile at Kris.  
  
“No, I was just—it doesn’t matter,” Baekhyun said. He rolled onto his side, into the space next to Kris, and it felt weirdly natural how Kris’s arm curled around his waist and pulled him closer. He could smell the scent of sex and sweat and Kris’s cologne and now, he would always associate that with sex. Now, he would always associate Kris with sex because he didn’t think he would be able to forget this. And whether he wanted just a one-night stand or a real relationship, what he wanted didn’t matter because this was what it was and he couldn’t change that.  
  
“You look so much better when you smile,” said Kris. “Don’t make that face again or I’m gonna have to kiss it off.”  
  
“What if I want you to kiss me anyway?” Baekhyun blurted out, and Kris stroked his hair, pushing it away from Baekhyun’s face so he could see Baekhyun’s eyes beneath his fringe.  
  
“Do you?” he asked.  
  
“Yeah, I do,” said Baekhyun, and that was the last thing either of them said before their mouths fell together sleepily, kissing and sucking and taunting Baekhyun with everything he knew this wouldn’t—this couldn’t—be.  
  
  
  
  
Baekhyun figured that if Kris was such a god in bed, then he would’ve been pretty good at the whole one-night stand etiquette—leaving in the morning before the other party woke up and creeping out in a walk of shame and embarrassment with a few stolen bills stuffed into his back pocket—but he wasn’t. Actually, it was unsurprising, considering that Kris was fucked out of his mind, and rather, what was more surprising was that Baekhyun had slept well last night, curled up into the warmth of Kris’s body. Baekhyun was good at three things: hitting it, quitting it, and having commitment issues, and the feeling of liking Kris, liking the chemistry that they had, was foreign and scary. His face immediately flushed bright red when he remembered what Kris had told him yesterday-- _I love you,_ and whilst Baekhyun was convinced that Kris probably said that to everyone to woo them with his sexy hipster charms, it made his stomach flutter nonetheless and he covered his face with his hands.  
  
Kris was still asleep when Baekhyun mustered up enough courage to peek between his fingers, staring at the lump under his sheets. In a panic, he remembered that it was only Friday and he had a morning class today, which the pounding in his head and his chest did nothing to calm him down, and debated shoving Kris out of his bed and apartment. Kris looked peaceful, though, sleeping there with his carefully-carelessly messy hair sticking up all over the place and his eyelashes, long and dark, fanned over his cheeks, and Baekhyun supposed that leaving him there to sleep a little longer wouldn’t hurt more than his ass did anyway.  
  
Sliding out of the bed, he was careful that he didn’t disturb Kris, who slept like a lazy cat, sprawled out over the mattress in a weirdly graceful way, and pulled on a pair of shorts he’d found on the floor in an attempt to look half-decent. As he hobbled to the bathroom, he noticed that Chanyeol hadn’t come home last night because his room was empty and there was no way that Chanyeol would ever go to college this early. Not that Baekhyun gave a shit, of course, because Chanyeol had deserted him and that was an unforgivable crime. He could’ve had his organs harvested on the black market by Prepubescent Satan for all Baekhyun cared.  
  
Baekhyun showered quickly, dousing himself in cold water, and washed his face, trying to make himself look like he hadn’t just vacationed in Hell, and by the time he got back to the bedroom, stopping for a detour to the kitchen to turn on the coffee machine, Kris had woken up. He was lounging in the bed, still naked but thankfully covered by the blankets, and was texting on his phone, eyebrows furrowed together. When Baekhyun stepped into the room and cleared his throat, Kris turned his head and smiled brightly, his gums practically blinding, and Baekhyun forced down the blush that was threatening to rise.  
  
Night-time Baekhyun and day-time Baekhyun were two completely different people. Sometimes Baekhyun could be sexy and shameless and could write an entire dissertation on how to give a blowjob. But Baekhyun was also kind of nerdy and awkward when it came to relationships and got embarrassed when hot boys were fully-naked in his bed. He covered his eyes with his hands as he bent down to grab a sweater that didn’t smell funky and pulled on his jeans, hoping that Kris, as lovely as his dick was, would follow suit.  
  
“Hi,” said Kris. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”  
  
“Um, I slept okay, I guess,” said Baekhyun, feeling uncharacteristically shy because Kris seemed exactly the kind of guy who was a sex-beast and could also cook the best fried eggs and do the laundry in a regular schedule. “Are you…gonna put some clothes on or something?”  
  
“Oh, sorry,” said Kris, picking up his underwear and wriggling into it on the bed. “I don’t mean to intrude”— _It’s a little late for that,_ Baekhyun thought as he rubbed his sore butt and looked remorsefully at his unmade bed— “but can I use your bathroom?”  
  
“Sure,” said Baekhyun. Kris’s shirt was by the door, pulled off and left there by a frantic hands and hot breaths, and Baekhyun threw it over his shoulder as he went into the kitchen for his daily coffee, praying it would relieve his headache and that it would clear his mind enough to make sense of what the hell was happening.  
  
Things he knew about Kris: he was hot and he was apparently in love with Baekhyun.  
  
So, all in all, not good. The thing that irritated Baekhyun the most, though, the thing that kept nagging him, was that he was certain he’d seen Kris before. He just couldn’t, for the life of him, remember where. Maybe his earlier hunch was right. Maybe he was over-thinking this. It was entirely possible that Baekhyun had just seen him in the street once. Nothing more than that. And sure, Baekhyun liked the idea of falling in love at first sight, but really, he wasn’t stupid enough to believe in it. Whatever he’d thought yesterday he put down to being tipsy and picking out Kris from a bunch of people was probably just coincidental. Like the way he’d met Chanyeol in his first year of college and they’d ended up being best friends. Like the way he’d won that Jigglypuff toy from the gacha machine last week, the missing piece in his Pokémon gacha collection. Totally coincidental.  
  
And yet, having sussed it all out, all badass Sherlock Holmes, it still didn’t quite make sense. Didn’t quite fit together. The black coffee wasn’t helping; if anything, his head hurt even more trying to piece together the puzzle, but at least Kris would be gone by this afternoon, which meant he could stop worrying about this stupid thing and this stupid, mysterious hot boy. He had things to do, other boys to screw, and this was nothing but a blip in his life.  
  
“You alright?”  
  
Kris’s voice snapped Baekhyun out of his thoughts and he looked up, only to instantly regret it. It was amazing how Kris had straightened up so well after last night. He’d somehow managed to make himself look presentable, his face fresh and his clothes much less wrinkly than Baekhyun’s, and Baekhyun found his gaze lingering for a moment too long before he looked away. That would just complicate things; it was easier to keep this superficial, to keep this as ‘nothing’ instead of ‘something.’ This didn’t mean anything. What Kris had said last night didn’t mean anything.  
  
“Yeah, just thinking,” said Baekhyun, and a moment later, because Kris looked a little like a sad puppy, he added, “Do you want some coffee?”  
  
“I’m a little hungry, actually,” said Kris. “Do you have food?”  
  
“All I have is leftover pizza in the fridge,” Baekhyun said apologetically. In fact, it was Chanyeol’s, which made it even better. “That’s literally all I have, unless you want to get, like, food poisoning from expired instant ramen.”  
  
“I guess that’s okay then,” Kris said.  
  
Trawling through the mess of mouldy food and packs of beer in the fridge, Baekhyun got the feeling that Kris was incredibly well-off, if not rich, and most likely really self-entitled, because he seemed nice enough, yeah, but it was painfully obvious from the way he dressed (Baekhyun swore he saw ‘KRIS’ studded in diamonds on his ass) and the way he carried himself that he was used to getting what he wanted. Which was fine with Baekhyun because it wasn’t like he was ever going to see Kris again. Kris could do what he wanted. Baekhyun didn’t care.  
  
“Anchovy pizza?” said Kris disbelievingly as he squinted at the plate in front of him. He leaned in close and sniffed, scrunching up his nose. “Seriously? Anchovy pizza? That’s, like, the sad emo pizza out of the whole pizza family. No one likes it ‘cause it tastes like crap.”  
  
“Well, you don’t _have_ to eat it,” said Baekhyun, more amused than annoyed because Kris took a bite out of it anyway, carefully cutting a small piece off with a knife and a fork. It was amusing to see Kris eat it like a three-course gourmet meal with an air of sophistication and power and control that didn’t fit at all with his bed-hair and that godawful flannel shirt.  
  
“You really don’t have anything else?” asked Kris. “Really really _really?_ ” He poked at one of the anchovies with his fork warily like it’d come back alive and jump at him, and grimaced in disgust. “Let me take you out then. For coffee. A chocolate muffin. Caviar, maybe. Edible food. You know what they say. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”  
  
“I have class,” Baekhyun answered, gulping down the remains of his coffee and dumping it into the sink. He made a mental note to remind Chanyeol it was his turn to do the dishes. They had a rota and Chanyeol was never too good at sticking to it, let alone ever being at home. Baekhyun’s rucksack was lying on the floor where he’d left it yesterday afternoon and he hoisted it over his shoulders, hoping that Kris would get the hint and go already.  
  
“You can’t spare ten minutes?” Kris looked at him imploringly. “I just want to thank you for, y’know, not kicking me out last night. I know that sometimes I tend to, uh, overstay.”  
  
He peered at Baekhyun from underneath his fringe, pushed back yesterday and flopped back in front today, sweeping over his eyes and making him look a lot younger, and, thought Baekhyun for a second, he wouldn’t be surprised if Kris turned out to be, like, eighteen or something. He looked like a lost dog, begging to be taken home, begging for Baekhyun to bring him along, and damn Baekhyun’s inner philanthropic Samaritan. Kris looked pitiable and kind of adorable, this six-foot tall giant giving him puppy eyes and pouty lips, and Baekhyun sighed in defeat.  
  
“I suppose I can spare half an hour,” said Baekhyun, and he tried to push down the warm feeling that rose in his chest when Kris’s eyes lit up.  
  
They walked out of the apartment building together, chatting amiably about trivial things, and Baekhyun acted as if Kris hadn’t just confessed to him last night, during their first meeting because Kris was acting as if he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. There were weird people in the world, but no matter how weird they were, people just didn’t do that, and Kris was the exception. Maybe he was more drunk than Baekhyun had thought; maybe he just didn’t remember, but Kris kept sending him the occasional look, yearning and a little bit sad, and Baekhyun knew because he’d seen that look himself in the mirror.  
  
It was cold outside this morning, the leaves brown and crinkled and swirling around on the floor in the wind. Baekhyun shivered in his thin sweater, cursing his shitty memory as he remembered he’d left his coat at home, and brought his arms around to wrap around himself.  
  
“You’re freezing,” Kris murmured beside him, touching his arm.  
  
It was the same thing Baekhyun had done yesterday—leaned in, trailed his fingers up Kris’s strong arms—and yet when Kris did it, it felt comforting. Kris’s hand was large and warm, fitting easily over around Baekhyun’s wrist and rubbing over his skin where his veins were, and suddenly, Baekhyun didn’t feel so cold. It felt like he belonged; it felt like home. And it didn’t make sense. Kris was like an asteroid, appearing out of nowhere and driving into his path, and Baekhyun couldn’t comprehend why it felt so natural. Why it felt right.  
  
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m just a little sensitive.”  
  
“Still,” said Kris, tilting his head to the side and looking like a sad puppy again, and Baekhyun’s chest fluttered, “you might catch a cold.”  
  
He shrugged off his own coat, the denim jacket, and draped it around Baekhyun’s shoulders, grinning triumphantly. Whereas it was fitted on Kris, it was oversized on Baekhyun, the sleeves going way past his hands, but it was comfortable and warm from Kris’s body heat. The tips of Baekhyun’s ears turned pink and he stared at the floor as he mumbled out a _Thanks._  
  
“You look cute in it,” said Kris. “It looks better on you than it does on me. You can wear it to class. I’m not cold.”  
  
“It doesn’t even fit me,” Baekhyun grumbled, and Kris laughed. It was the first time he’d ever heard Kris laugh, a little gruff and pleasant to his ears, and oh god, he realised, slightly terrified, that he actually liked it.  
  
“It’s cute,” Kris repeated firmly, and smiled at him mischievously. “You can give it back the next time we meet.”  
  
And well, thought Baekhyun, even as he blushed and his fingers played with the frayed hems of the sleeves, that was Kris’s problem, not his, because it wasn’t like he’d ever see Kris again.  
  
(But later, when he was walking home with Chanyeol and he stuck his hands in the pockets because his hands were about to freeze and drop off, he found a little note, folded up neatly in the left one. Baekhyun didn’t recognise the handwriting, although he knew who it was from because there was no one else with the same freak-circus mentality Kris had.  
  
 _I’m still so in love with you,_ it said.  
  
Baekhyun promptly ripped it into pieces, threw the shreds into the bin, and stormed off as Chanyeol asked him why his face was so red and chased after him hurriedly.)


	2. Chapter 2

**ii.**  
  
  
There is a point in every story where things just have to screw up, and about two weeks later, _Oh boy,_ thought Baekhyun, _was I wrong._  
  
Working as a pizza delivery boy wasn’t the most high-paying, sophisticated or, like, Not Crap job in the world, but it was good enough for Baekhyun as a part-time job so he could earn money to pay for the rent and the massive amount of alcohol he and Chanyeol stashed in their fridge. It was mind-numbingly dull but it was easy because all he had to do was drive around and get pizzas, and really, he was paid too much to do this shit.  
  
He worked on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and the occasional weekend, and this evening, it wasn’t too busy, which meant business was slow and mostly, he hung out in the back with Jongdae, another driver. His shift had nearly ended and he only had a few more orders left, one of which was in a quite affluent area where people had corgis and ate brunch. Jongdae begged him to swap orders because Chanyeol had ordered a portion of garlic bread and _Fuck, he’s gonna make me play CoD with him all night and you know how much I hate CoD! Baek, please!_ and Baekhyun had just flipped him off.  
  
The address he was supposed to deliver to was close by, around five minutes by his company-rented motorcycle, and the streets were lined with fancy cars and fancy security systems. His destination was the third floor of a high-rise apartment block and he whistled, impressed, as he passed by a black Mercedes parked out front with the pizza box in hand.  
  
There were three types of people in the world who ate anchovy pizza—the brave, who could stand the disgusting taste of fish on tomato sauce; the stupid, who didn’t realise that literally every other pizza in the world was better than anchovy pizza; and Chanyeol, who Baekhyun supposed was both brave and stupid. So it was understandable that he was expecting a dumb college boy who wore his pants too low and his snapback the wrong way around to appear at the door when he finally reached apartment 3B and knocked.  
  
The door opened after two knocks. It wasn’t enough time for Baekhyun to prepare himself for what he was about to see.  
  
“Hi, your pizza delive—oh my god, Kris!?”  
  
“Yeah, I ordered a pizza—oh my god, Baekhyun!?”  
  
 _Shit,_ Baekhyun thought, hoping his legs would move so he could run away and bury himself underneath some dirt and never come out again. Instead, his mouth opened, closed, and opened again, making him look like a surprised goldfish, and he stared at Kris in mild horrification. Oh god. _Oh god._ Did Kris have—oh god, was that _stubble?_ Oh god. He’d always prayed for a short and quick death, but now, he was willing to bang his head on the wall until he got concussion if it meant he wouldn’t be conscious for the greatest embarrassment of his life.  
  
“I—uh, hey, I guess,” said Baekhyun, forcing himself to speak. “Here’s your pizza. Don’t worry about paying. It’s on me. Bye. See you,” _never_ , he added silently as he thrust the box into Kris’s hands and turned around, wondering if two broken legs and a fractured arm would be worth it for a quick getaway via Jumping Out the Window.  
  
“Baekhyun, wait!” Kris called, reaching out to grab his hand.  
  
There it was again, that warmth and familiarity of Kris’s hands, and Baekhyun’s body reacted involuntarily, stopping him in his tracks because it knew what he wanted. His body wanted, craved, for Kris again, and Baekhyun wasn’t sure if he should’ve kept fighting it. Baekhyun didn’t have relationships with one-night stands; he didn’t become friends with the people he hooked up with because that was what had happened with Jongdae and look how that turned out. Jongdae came over every weekend and freeloaded off him and ate his food and sprayed popcorn crumbs all over the couch because he couldn’t keep his fucking mouth shut when he ate and talked about his boyfriend’s dick in more detail that Baekhyun ever needed to know.  
  
“Yeah?” said Baekhyun, reluctantly turning back.  
  
Kris’s eyes were wide and sincere and a smile crept up onto his face, that same dumb puppy smile, and he pulled Baekhyun back, setting the pizza box on a tabletop. “I had faith that we’d meet again,” he said. “I just knew it.”  
  
“Um,” said Baekhyun.  
  
“Do you maybe want to come in or something?” Kris asked. He kept tugging Baekhyun closer and Baekhyun let him as if Kris had his own gravitational pull. Kris was the lost dog, and once again, Baekhyun had found him. “I don’t think I’ll be able to eat this pizza all by myself. Maybe you can help me eat it. If you want, of course. I’m not—I’m not forcing you or anything. I just thought it’d be nice.”  
  
This was Baekhyun’s chance to get the hell out of here and never look back. Kris was literally telling him he could say no if he wanted and like hell was he going to sit here and eat pizza with the guy who fucked him two weeks ago and told him that he loved him. Bullshit.  
  
“Uh, well, I guess I could drop in after work. My shift’s ending soon anyway,” said Baekhyun.  
  
Dammit.  
  
Kris looked intimidating and scary, like the type of guy who could crush your neck with his bare hands, but he smiled a lot and fuck, Baekhyun liked his smile a lot too. “Oh!” he said excitedly (not cute, not cute, not cute, Baekhyun mentally chanted) and then, gruffer, “I mean, oh. Cool. I mean, it’s not like I—never mind. Cool. Whatever. Just drop by if you want. I’ll be waiting for you, but not in like a weird, desperate loner type way, I mean, just, like, in a normal cool guy way—“  
  
“Kris,” said Baekhyun.  
  
“Yeah?” said Kris. Lost puppy had turned into hopeful puppy, and god, Kris was incorrigible.  
  
“I’ll see if I can come by later,” Baekhyun said.  
  
Kris beamed at him and pressed a wad of bills into his palm. “Keep the change,” he said. “See you in a bit!”  
  
Baekhyun delivered the rest of his orders with a thumping heart, too quick to be normal, too violent to be just nothing, and he told himself that it wasn’t because he was looking forward to seeing Kris again because that was the worst thing that could happen. He clocked out of his shift back at the pizza restaurant, laughing when Joonmyun, the guy who answered the phone for the orders because he was polite and sounded nice, told him that Jongdae was still with Chanyeol, and scowled when Joonmyun asked him why he looked so happy because it wasn’t _that_ funny.  
  
He quickly debated if he had time to go home for a shower because he stank of fries and pepperoni, and then decided against it because it wasn’t like he cared about what Kris thought he smelt like. Kris would have to put up with his greasy, childhood obesity smell, and if he didn’t like it, then that was a point in Baekhyun’s favour because he didn’t really want to eat pizza with Kris anyway; it was just that he felt kind of sorry for Kris because Kris was a sad dog and he looked lonely. Not that Baekhyun cared if he was lonely or anything because it wasn’t like Baekhyun cared about Kris.  
  
Kris opened the door after the first knock this time, and in the hour that Baekhyun had been gone, he’d changed from his old T-shirt and shorts into an expensive-looking shirt and jeans and smoothed down his hair. He’d shaved, and what the hell, thought Baekhyun as he scuffed his trainers on the floor nervously, Kris was a total nutcase. They were just going to eat pizza and Kris had dressed up all nicely, which made him feel underdressed, even though they weren’t going anywhere and pizza was meant to be eaten on lonely Saturday nights with Game of Thrones queued on Netflix.  
  
Kris invited him in and opened a litre bottle of Diet Coke, and _oh great,_ thought Baekhyun, they were both going to be sober and what were they supposed to talk about now? Maybe what a complete weirdo Kris was and how it was socially inappropriate to confess your love to someone after knowing them for, like, two hours? No thanks. Instead, Baekhyun preoccupied himself with eating the pizza, holding his breath when he swallowed and immediately taking a swig of Coke to get rid of the aftertaste, and he’d realised that Kris hadn’t eaten any of it apart from a tiny piece he’d picked off and left. Kris had been waiting for him. Kris wasn’t even eating any now; whilst Baekhyun was busy eating away his troubles, Kris was busy watching Baekhyun eat, his face cupped in his hands and a small smile on his lips. It made Baekhyun’s cheeks burn, the way Kris was looking at him, like they’d been married for fifty years or something, and he turned his gaze to Kris’s apartment, taking in his surroundings.  
  
It confirmed Baekhyun’s suspicions that Kris was indeed rich. The apartment was so modern that it hurt, a minimalistic style that Baekhyun could appreciate, and various paintings hanging from the walls. There was a pair of doors that led to the balcony where there were two deck chairs and a washing line with a lone pair of Spongebob boxers, probably Gucci, and by the window was a cosy little cactus for that eco-friendly aesthetic. Kris must’ve had a really good job to afford an apartment this nice or maybe his family owned a huge corporate business. There was also talk of underground gangs and the Mafia—the city was, in general, a safe metropolis, but Baekhyun knew there were shady dealings and stuff going on that he preferred not to get involved with because he, y’know, valued his life—but there was no way that Kris was part of that. He wasn’t a badass with massive bulging muscles and a nose piercing and a motorbike and a bandana tied around his head; he was endearing and Baekhyun…liked him.  
  
 _Dammit._  
  
“How’s the pizza?” asked Kris abruptly, and Baekhyun stopped halfway through his third chew.  
  
“’S okay,” he said, when he really meant, _It tastes like shit but I’m eating it anyway!_ “Aren’t you gonna eat?”  
  
“I don’t really like anchovies,” Kris said, “but I thought I’d give them another chance ‘cause you liked them. Turns out, I still don’t like anchovies.”  
  
Baekhyun felt slightly bad for lying to Kris about his love for anchovies, but Kris deserved it for inviting him over and ruining his entire Single Bachelor Life. And Kris was still staring at him like he was a Van Gogh painting, as if he was the most interesting thing in the world, and Baekhyun scrunched his face up, trying to make himself look gross so Kris would just quit it already. “What?” he said.  
  
“Nothing,” said Kris. “Just thinking about how much I think I’d like to eat you up instead.”  
  
The trouble with Kris was that Baekhyun didn’t think Kris actually thought about what he said when he said it because that sentence was riddled with sexual innuendo. Baekhyun didn’t think his face had turned this red so many times in five minutes in his entire life and Kris was either really dumb or he just chose not to show that he knew he’d just offered to do extremely inappropriate things to Baekhyun’s butt. And then, thirty minutes later, Baekhyun knew Kris definitely wasn’t dumb because he had Baekhyun naked on his bed, on his back with his legs spread apart invitingly and his hands clutching at the pillow as he wondered how the hell Kris had gotten him here so easily.  
  
At least Kris was half-naked too, stripped down to his underwear, which made Baekhyun feel a little better until he remembered that Kris was also, like, ten billion times hotter than he was, which made him feel a little bad because living with Chanyeol meant that he was used to be the Hot One. And when Kris ran his palms over the smooth skin of his ass, it made Baekhyun feel much, much, much better because Kris’s hands were big and firm and he kind of wanted Kris to just get on with it already.  
  
In this position, knees stretched apart with Kris between them so he was open and exposed, his thighs burned a little, but that was the least of his worries when Kris was busy coaxing his lips open with his mouth, kissing his upper lip and then biting on his lower lip with his teeth, playfully nipping at the thick pout of Baekhyun’s mouth. Last time, it’d been Baekhyun who had been in control. This time, it was Kris’s turn.  
  
Kissing Kris was quickly becoming one of Baekhyun’s favourite things to do. It was a little bit sloppy, a little bit messy with too much teeth as Kris’s front teeth, too fucking big for his own mouth but still kind of endearing when he smiled that gummy smile of his, knocked into Baekhyun’s lips. What Kris lacked in finesse, though, he ade up for with his enthusiasm. His mouth was hot and his hands were curiously stroking the back of Baekhyun’s neck, large and warm. Baekhyun really liked his hands, and with startling clarity, realised that he really liked Kris too.  
  
“Hey, let’s do what we did last time,” said Baekhyun, breathless when he pulled away. “Tell me something else about you. I want—I want to know more about you.”  
  
Kris looked more amused than anything, which probably wasn’t too weird for him considering that he liked to proclaim his love to his random hook-ups, and kissed Baekhyun, strangely tenderly. Baekhyun’s chest squeezed again, like his ribcage was a few sizes too small for his heart, and he hoped Kris couldn’t feel how his heartbeat was thumping and beating a little bit too fast.  
  
“Okay,” said Kris, “I’m up for it. Just one thing, huh?”  
  
“Yeah,” said Baekhyun. It came out as a stutter; his chest felt too tight to speak, to breathe. “Just one thing.”  
  
“I am,” Kris began, moving down Baekhyun’s body to suck marks between his clavicles, red bruises blooming between sharp bones, “in love”—he thumbed over Baekhyun’s nipples and took one between his lips, flicking it with his tongue, and Baekhyun arched his body towards Kris’s mouth, letting out a whine as he clenched his hands into the pillow—“with a boy”—Kris fluttered kisses down Baekhyun’s stomach to his hips, pressing one next to his navel—“with pretty fingers and pretty eyes and pretty lips.”  
  
Baekhyun couldn’t help himself from asking, “Is that boy me?”  
  
Maybe there was a part of him that wanted it to be him, but there was another part of him that knew that wanting Kris’s feelings to be real was just wishful thinking. This was why Baekhyun hated relationships. There were too many things he didn’t know, didn’t understand, and was too unsure of, and he hated feeling so uncertain, so insecure.  
  
“No, it’s another boy who’s small and cute and sexy,” said Kris, and Baekhyun’s heart stopped for a moment before he noticed the mischievous twinkle in Kris’s eyes, peering up at Baekhyun beneath his soft puppy-hair, and he flicked Kris on the forehead gently, letting out a huff of breath. Kris pressed his mouth to the inside of Baekhyun’s thigh and laughed, sending shudders of electricity up Baekhyun’s spine, and Baekhyun wanted to hear it more. He wanted to hear Kris’s laugh and see Kris’s smile and that meant nothing good at all.  
  
Fortunately, Kris was gracious enough to hoist Baekhyun’s legs over his shoulders and put his mouth to good use, clearing Baekhyun’s mind of any thoughts he had. Kris’s tongue was hot as he trailed a stripe up Baekhyun’s cock, licking at the precome that had leaked from the slit, and he sucked one of Baekhyun’s balls into his mouth, moving lower and lower. Baekhyun grasped Kris’s hair and moaned, tilting his head back and closing his eyes in pleasure as Kris moaned, creating vibrations that made Baekhyun’s cock twitch and throb against his stomach, and urged Kris to keep going, nudging his head with his hands.  
  
Kris really was not lying when he’d said he wanted to eat Baekhyun up. The first wet lick against Baekhyun’s hole made Baekhyun’s breath stutter at the unexpected contact, Kris’s tongue tracing the pucker of his rim teasingly and slicking it up with saliva, and the second lick had Baekhyun moaning and gasping out Kris’s name, his hips rocking towards Kris for more.  
  
“Good?” said Kris, lifting his head so he could grin at Baekhyun.  
  
“Don’t stop,” Baekhyun said, the back of his head rubbing against the pillow when his back arched and he bucked his hips as Kris lapped at his hole feverishly, his tongue insistent.  
  
He ate Baekhyun in the same way that he kissed; his lips and tongue were eager, tracing circles around the rim of Baekhyun’s entrance before his tongue tensed and pushed in, eliciting a strangled sound of pleasure from Baekhyun as he jerked his hips up, clenching his hands so tightly that he was sure his nails would tattoo crescents on his palms. Kris’s tongue thrust in and out steadily, occasionally pulling out to lick at Baekhyun’s rim like Baekhyun was a delicacy and he couldn’t get enough. His tongue was wet with spit and Baekhyun could feel it trickling down the cleft of his ass and to his thighs, and oh god, this was so dirty and filthy that it made him even harder, wishing that he could see Kris eating him out between his legs right now.  
  
His toes curled into the air when Kris gave a particularly deep thrust of his tongue and pulled out slowly, letting it drag against Baekhyun’s walls, and moved away to wipe at his swollen mouth with the back of his hand. Baekhyun whined, pawing at Kris’s head, and Kris chuckled deeply.  
  
“Touch yourself,” he growled lowly, reaching over for the bottle of lube he had stashed near his bed. He squeezed some onto his fingers and rubbed them together to warm them up, pressing one to Baekhyun’s hole. Baekhyun moaned and let out a shuddering breath, his hole fluttering and trying to suck it into his body greedily. “I’m gonna finger you and eat you out and make you come that you won’t be able to think about anything else but me for days. I’m gonna make you come _so_ hard.”  
  
Baekhyun just moaned, urging Kris to hurry up by jerking his hips into his fist as his slim fingers curled around his leaking cock, sensitive and hard, and Kris dipped back down to lick at his rim as he pushed the first finger in, wriggling it past one knuckle, and then two, and then down to the hilt. Kris’s fingers were longer and bigger than his and they felt amazing inside his ass, long enough to press against that spot inside him with ease, making stars burst behind his eyelids. He panted Kris’s name as Kris thrust his finger in leisurely and added another one as he licked around them with his tongue, tracing Baekhyun’s stretched rim, and Baekhyun was so hard that his body seized up and his cock jerked in his fist as he came, his spine bowing prettily and his lips parted with Kris’s name on them. The position that he was in and the angle of his body caused his come to spurt over his chest, sticky threads of white over his skin, and only when his breathing started to even out and he could see somewhat straight did Kris pull his fingers out and wipe them on his sheets, gently letting down Baekhyun’s legs and coming back up to press a kiss to Baekhyun’s lips.  
  
Baekhyun could taste himself on Kris’s tongue, and though he’d already come, he still wanted Kris. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted, and he didn’t know if he could ever get enough, and the thought of that scared him a little bit. Wanting someone so much that it bordered on need wasn’t new, but feeling it so intensely for someone and that someone being Kris as well made it feel as if it was.  
  
Kris’s hand curled around his jaw and his fingers rubbed that sensitive spot beneath Baekhyun’s ear, and Baekhyun could feel Kris’s cock still hard against his own, clad in the confines of his underwear. “What do you want me to do,” Baekhyun whispered against his lips, running a thumb over Kris’s cheek.  
  
“I want to fuck your thighs,” said Kris without hesitation, and Baekhyun kissed him again, giving him a silent confirmation.  
  
Kris’s hands were comforting and warm on his thighs as Kris slicked them up with lube, making them slippery enough for him to slip his cock between them, pulsing between Baekhyun’s legs. His thighs were still tense and Kris massaged them with his fingers before he moved his hands to Baekhyun’s hips, holding them for leverage as he started to rock his own hips, thrusting his cock in.  
  
“Squeeze your legs together—ah, fuck, yes,” he moaned as Baekhyun pressed his thighs together, his hands clasped around the back of Kris’s neck to pull him into a kiss.  
  
Baekhyun was still kissing him when he came over Baekhyun’s thighs, his come spurting over Baekhyun’s skin filthily, and Baekhyun didn’t think he ever wanted to stop. What that meant—he was too scared to try to find out.  
  
  
  
  
Upon waking up in the morning, all Baekhyun had done was lie on Kris’s massive king-sized bed, sinking into the plush cushions and the silk sheets and trying to regain feeling in his limbs. He was absolutely boneless and didn’t feel like moving, but in a good way, and Kris’s bed was warm and great for snuggling in. Not that he wanted to snuggle though. It was simply a minor observation that he’d happened to make.  
  
Once again, Kris was playing on his phone, messaging someone, and Baekhyun felt a tightness in his chest, almost like jealousy. He reprimanded himself for being such a sap because of course Kris could text whoever he wanted. It wasn’t like Kris belonged to him. Kris seemed like the playboy type, so nice that it could be manipulative, saying what people wanted to hear, and Baekhyun wouldn’t have been surprised if Kris had a few other boyfriends on the side too. Then again, thinking about it more deeply, Kris was a genuinely nice puppy-boy and Baekhyun couldn’t quite see him having sex with Baekhyun and then fucking around with other people behind his back.  
  
“Who’re you texting?” asked Baekhyun, and then immediately regretted it because his voice was hoarse from moaning Kris’s name.  
  
“Just my, um, friend,” said Kris. He shuffled a little closer in the bed so Baekhyun could feel the heat from his body and smell the scent of cologne and sex and addiction. Bad. This was bad. “He was with me at the club but I think he was just sulking somewhere in the corner. He’s telling me about some weird guy he had sex with and he’s all like, _Ugh, this guy is so dumb and he keeps calling me, but I only pick up ‘cause I feel sorry for him,_ which is typical Kyungsoo for you. I think Kyungsoo likes him really but he doesn’t like it when people realise he’s an Actual Human Being with Real Emotions.”  
  
Kyungsoo? Baekhyun was sure he’d heard that name somewhere…from Chanyeol? He never really listened when Chanyeol talked, but he vaguely remembered hearing a Kyungsoo from one of Chanyeol’s psychotic sex rants. He couldn’t be the guy Chanyeol was porking and the guy who Kris was friends with, could he?  
  
“Does this Kyungsoo happen to be dating someone called Chanyeol?” asked Baekhyun slowly.  
  
“Yeah, I think so,” said Kris, “but Kyungsoo just calls him Freaky Friday because apparently, he looks young but he sounds like an eighty year old man. Kyungsoo’s a bit weird like that.”  
  
“This is weird,” said Baekhyun. “Chanyeol’s my roommate. I don’t know if you saw them that night but he was the tall one groping Kyungsoo’s ass. Big eyes, bowl-hair cut. It’s hard not to miss him.”  
  
Baekhyun didn’t really want to get up, didn’t think he had enough energy left in him to get up, but ugh, college, and he had to go home to yell at Chanyeol for sleeping with his—what was Kris?—his _Kris’s_ friend, which was all kinds of fucked up. Although, if Chanyeol knew, he would want to double date and Baekhyun did not want to put up with Chanyeol’s countless spam emails and PowerPoint attachments telling him about the benefits of playing doubles in table tennis tournaments.  
  
And what was exactly was Kris to him? They’d only met twice and yet it felt like they’d known each other for longer. There was attraction, that much was undeniable, and the pull was strong, enticing and Baekhyun couldn’t resist it. Sure, he could tell himself that this was nothing, but the fact was, this was something. Something intense, something that Baekhyun couldn’t understand because it was beyond human comprehension, and he just… He liked being with Kris, he realised. He liked having sex with Kris; he liked it when Kris trailed his hands over his skin as if he was mapping it out under his fingers, and he’d liked that one morning when Kris had taken him out for coffee and they’d just talked and Kris had cracked bad jokes which Baekhyun had laughed at because they were awful and he liked Kris’s smile when he saw Baekhyun laughing.  
  
Some people thought that love happened over time, that it developed, but for Baekhyun, it had already begun manifesting. In his chest, there was a tight warmth and a bloom of heat that made his entire body shiver when he looked at Kris, despite the cosiness of the bed, and he didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t because of college. It was because of Kris.  
  
His breath hitched in his throat—this was moving too fast; this was getting too intense too quickly, and Baekhyun wasn’t ready, not yet. Maybe one day, he would be, if they’d last that long, but not yet. He sat up and the crinkle of the sheets made Kris look over, tilting his head to the side like a dog begging him to stay.  
  
“You’re leaving already? It’s only, like, eight,” he said. “You can’t stay a little longer? I thought we could maybe get brunch or—“  
  
“Sorry,” said Baekhyun, and then he winced at how clipped and curt he sounded. “I mean, I’ve got college so… I wish I could, but I can’t.”  
  
“Oh,” said Kris. He stood up in his underwear and padded over to the windows, spanning half the wall, and pulled open the curtains, a stream of sunlight pouring in. Baekhyun stared at the way the light reflected off Kris’s skin, highlighting the muscles of his bare back and the long scratches down his skin Baekhyun had left there yesterday.  
  
Gorgeous.  
  
“…raining outside,” said Kris, and Baekhyun snapped out of his thoughts.  
  
“Uh, sorry, what?” Baekhyun said. “Just zoned out there for a few seconds.”  
  
“I said, it’s raining outside. Are you sure you don’t want a lift or anything? I can drive you. My Mercedes is out front. We can stop for coffee if you want.”  
  
Baekhyun shook his head. It had already manifested; the electricity was in the air and he was breathing it in and he couldn’t let this fester. It was already intense enough, the hum and the throb of desire that thudded between them. He could feel it, and he was sure Kris could feel it too, only that Kris wanted to act upon it and he didn’t. Kris was a one-night stand. Baekhyun didn’t have relationships with one-night stands. Period.  
  
“I’ll walk,” he said. “It’s not too far and I need to exercise anyway. I’ve just been sitting on my ass and stuffing myself with pizza”— _amongst other things,_ he thought—“all night. So I probably need it.”  
  
Kris frowned. “Alright…” he said, sounding unconvinced, but he let it go anyway. “If you’re sure. But here, take this anyway. I don’t want you to catch a cold.”  
  
He opened the doors to his wardrobe and started searching through the racks of clothes and loose shoes. Stussy, Givenchy and Gucci, Baekhyun noticed, and one particular abomination of fashion—a skull-printed top and horrible polka-dot harem pants—which burned Baekhyun’s eyes. Bending over to trawl through the very back, Kris’s position gave Baekhyun the perfect view of his butt, all round and perky and clad in the ugliest pair of Naruto boxers he’d ever seen, and suddenly, Baekhyun felt much more awake.  
  
“Found it,” said Kris triumphantly, emerging from the depths of his closet and brandishing a red umbrella in his hands. Baekhyun was still gawking at where Kris’s butt had been and he tried (unsuccessfully) to tear the image from his mind because walking to college with morning wood didn’t sound particularly appealing. Kris frowned at him. “Hey, my face is up here!”  
  
“Sorry,” said Baekhyun meekly. “Thanks for the umbrella.”  
  
Well, that would be another thing Kris wouldn’t be getting back, Baekhyun thought, mostly because he had awful memory and he’d probably leave it in the library or something. So it made him really surprised when he got back home and the umbrella was still in his grasp, clutched so hard in his fingers that they’d begun to ache.  
  
The touch of Kris’s hands ghosted against his skin and he wondered what fresh hell was this.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 **iii.**  
  
  
And then, things happened in spades.  
  
He started to bump into Kris everywhere. In the streets when he going to the café with his friends, at the park, in the convenience store, and their accidental meetings were no longer just ‘coincidental.’ Being with Kris made him feel complete, made him feel like he’d found something that he hadn’t even known he’d been searching for, and what exactly did this mean for them? They were seeking each other out, the magnetism and electricity between them too strong; there was something enticing about doing things that they weren’t supposed to and Kris was like a forbidden fruit, a one-night stand that Baekhyun wasn’t supposed to fall in love with, but the pull was too strong that sometimes Baekhyun would just lie in his bed, awake at three am, and stare at the ceiling, wanting Kris so much that it turned into _need_. When Baekhyun wasn’t with Kris, he yearned for him. It was terrifying and foreign, too long since he’d felt this way, felt so genuinely, for another person and he was scared.  
  
The shift was sudden and all-consuming and Baekhyun coasted along with the lingering touch of Kris’s hands and the memory of Kris’s lips on his body. Sometimes he lay in bed at night, thinking about how he’d pressed into space between them, how close Kris had been that there was barely any space but he’d pressed himself there anyway because it wasn’t close enough. Sometimes he remembered how Kris had kissed the spot beneath his ear, down his jaw, and the corner of his mouth to make him want, and they’d just stared at each other in the dark with his fingers tangled in Kris’s hair, breathing each other in, Baekhyun wishing that he could see so he could witness the demise of his fucking sanity. And sometimes he just thought about Kris, thought about Kris’s gummy, puppy smile and his carefully mussed up hair and the way he laughed, and Baekhyun found himself clenching his fists, his nails digging into his palms, because what they had was confusing and intense and Baekhyun hated that he couldn’t understand it.  
  
They were connected to each other in some way, even before they’d met because he was certain now that Kris had known him previously. He wasn’t sure how, but every so often, Kris would look at him so…helplessly, and Baekhyun wanted to remember so badly so he could get that expression off Kris’s face. And to Baekhyun, Kris had always been the lost puppy, and now, Baekhyun wasn’t sure who had found who. Maybe Kris had followed their red string, but it was tangled and complex and too complicated to unravel. Maybe Baekhyun was just holding onto something that wasn’t really there.  
  
Neither of them had established what this was yet. Whether it was a real relationship or simply a series of hook-ups, Baekhyun didn’t know. Every time they met up, they’d always end up having sex and fucking anywhere they could, except that there was an innate desperation and a deep-seated desire that meant this wasn’t just meaningless sex. He still didn’t know much about Kris; although he had accumulated many facts from their little arrangement, they were mostly useless. Apparently, Kris had a pet komodo dragon called Taozi, meaning ‘sheath,’ not ‘peach’; his father owned a zoo in China with a shark exhibit, and whilst Baekhyun liked old movies and cheeseburgers, Kris liked telling strangers that he loved them. He never failed to tell Baekhyun how much he loved him each time. _I’m so fucking in love with you,_ he’d said one time, simply those words, and Baekhyun had felt his heart clench and suddenly, it had been so much harder to breathe because Kris had taken his breath away.  
  
Anyone with half their mind would know that this probably wasn’t a good idea, Baekhyun fucking around with a guy that he barely knew. Baekhyun was falling in love with a guy that he barely knew, but maybe the right thing to do didn’t always necessarily have to be the most rational thing, the best idea. Which was what he wanted to convince himself; however, one day, when Kris turned up at his apartment with no warning, everything changed.  
  
He should’ve been used to it, really, because Kris had a tendency to show up everywhere unexpectedly, but it was different this time. Chanyeol was out, doing something that Baekhyun didn’t know and didn’t particularly care about, so he was home alone. Someone had buzzed in, and Baekhyun picked up the receiver, instantly recognising the voice when Kris said, _It’s me._ Baekhyun let him in, wondering what was wrong because Kris had sounded strained, like he was pushing his words out of his throat, and then he knew exactly what was wrong when he opened the door and Kris was standing there with bruises on his face and raindrops running down his skin and dirt on his water-soaked button-up. His hand was clutching at his arm, blood seeping through his fingers.  
  
“Oh my god,” said Baekhyun. “Oh my god. Oh my god, are you okay!?”  
  
“Just peachy,” said Kris in a forced light-heartedness, trying to make it seem as if it was nothing serious. Baekhyun stepped aside to usher him through and Kris staggered in, almost as if he was drunk and lightheaded, which Baekhyun supposed he must’ve been because the blood was staining into the white of his sleeves. He collapsed onto the sofa, and looking closely, Baekhyun could see the circles beneath his eyes and the tiredness in his pallid skin.  
  
“What the hell happened?” Baekhyun asked. He was afraid to touch Kris because Kris had always been so strong and powerful and now, he looked like he would break if he breathed too hard. “You’re…”  
  
“I just got into a little fight,” Kris answered. A flash of guilt passed in his eyes briefly. “Nothing to worry about. Honestly.”  
  
It was clear that he wasn’t in the mood to talk about it. Baekhyun swallowed and nodded, turning to go to the bathroom to get the first aid kit when Kris called out again. “W-Where are you going?”  
  
His eyes were wide. Frightened. Baekhyun had never seen him like this before.  
  
“Bathroom,” said Baekhyun. “I’m just gonna get some stuff to fix you up. I promise I’ll be back in a second.”  
  
Their medical kit was stuffed at the back of the medicine cabinet, and after a moment of thought, Baekhyun went into Chanyeol’s room to borrow some of his clothes—a loose T-shirt so it wouldn’t hurt Kris’s arm and Chanyeol’s ugly Hawaiian shorts that he probably wouldn’t miss. He returned to the lounge with a warm, damp towel in his hand, a larger fluffy one draped over his shoulders, and the other supplies, and Kris was slouched there with his eyes closed, looking a strange mix of peaceful and restless at the same time, lines on his forehead from his furrowed brows but his body sprawled over the couch.  
  
“Hey,” Baekhyun said quietly, and Kris opened his eyes, half-lidded, and smiled weakly. “Sit up.”  
  
The cushions sank underneath their weight as Baekhyun sat next to him, placing his hand on Kris’s arm comfortingly. Kris’s fingers were cold and numb and shaking, and Baekhyun pulled his hand away so he could roll up the sleeve, cleaning away the blood. He’d seen worse before—he’d dissected frogs in high school Biology—and the wound wasn’t bad. Kris was trying to look stoic with no skill and he winced as Baekhyun dabbed disinfectant onto the cut, bandaging it up neatly and tying it off.  
  
“Does it hurt?” Baekhyun asked, touching it gently. It was raining outside, the water thudding against the glass. Kris’s hair was damp and it stuck to his face and he was shivering, and god, he still looked gorgeous.  
  
“It hurts less now that you’re here,” said Kris. He rubbed at his hair sheepishly, making it stick up awkwardly, and Baekhyun reached over to smooth it back down, running his fingers through to untangle the knots.  
  
He couldn’t stand the expression on Kris’s face. He was used to seeing Kris’s dumb, dorky smile because he was a doofus who made stupid jokes, more hilariously bad than they were hilarious, and let Baekhyun wear his jacket though it was too big for him and he was kind and funny and smart and all kinds of beautiful. It made his heart wrench when Kris bit at his lower lip and breathed heavily through his nose, trying to calm his trembling hands. Baekhyun shuffled closer along the couch until their knees were touching and their thighs were pressed together, and swiped his thumb over Kris’s bottom lip, letting it linger before he pulled away.  
  
“What was that for?” Kris said. Baekhyun could see droplets on his eyelashes, wet from the rain or maybe from tears, he wasn’t sure.  
  
“Just…stop making that face. I don’t want to see you upset,” said Baekhyun. “C’mon. Smile.” He pressed his fingers to the corner of Kris’s mouth, pulling up so he grinned. “Hey, tell me that joke about the cheese again? The only one that was, like, actually funny?”  
  
“Okay,” said Kris, exhaling. “Okay. What did one cheese say when the other cheese said, _I love you?_ ”  
  
He looked straight at Baekhyun, straight into his eyes with his piercing gaze, and Baekhyun had to look away, busying himself readjusting Kris’s dressing.  
  
“ _You’re so cheesy,_ ” said Baekhyun.  
  
There was a beat of caustic silence, and then, Kris cocked his head to the bass leaning against the wall. “Is that yours?” he asked.  
  
Baekhyun shook his head. It was Jongdae’s; sometimes, he came over to annoy the hell out of Baekhyun with his shitty playing and he would usually leave his bass here so he would have an excuse to come over and eat Baekhyun’s food and jerk off in the bathroom or whatever he did when he went into the toilet for, like, thirty minutes.  
  
“It’s my friend’s,” Baekhyun replied.  
  
Kris mused over that thought. “And this friend of yours,” he said, “is he hot?”  
  
“I guess he’s sort of cute. If you like short, skinny boys with grasshopper legs. He’s, like, a huge nerd though.”  
  
“Hmm,” said Kris. He picked absentmindedly at the bandage on his arm and Baekhyun swatted his hand away.  
  
“What, are you jealous ‘cause I have a nerdy friend who’s sort of cute?”  
  
Kris shrugged. “Just scoping out the competition.”  
  
And here Kris was, saying these stupid things again like they had something, like Baekhyun belonged to him, and Baekhyun realised how silly it was because Kris thought that Baekhyun was fooling around with other people when he only had eyes for Kris. Baekhyun liked belonging to Kris; he liked it that Kris wanted him, needed him, and maybe there was a part of him that knew he needed Kris too. There was another silence and the only things Baekhyun could hear were Kris inhaling shallowly and the rain pattering on glass, rhythmic against the beating of his own heart.  
  
“Do you love me?” asked Kris, words nearly soundless, and yes, thought Baekhyun, he did.  
  
The only difference between him and Kris, though, was that Kris was brave enough to admit it and he was not.  
  
“I like you enough,” answered Baekhyun with a short laugh, trying to pass it off as a joke, and watched as Kris’s face fell, stomach twisting as his heart screamed at him to say yes, only that his throat was thick and he couldn’t form the words with his lips.  
  
“Okay,” Kris said again. He opened his palm and Baekhyun saw the crescents in his skin, printed there by his nails, and a fresh wave of emotions washed through Baekhyun’s body. Sadness, because he couldn’t fix this; anger, because he was such a coward; and fear, because he was scared of what Kris really was, of what was happening and the weight of the situation, and of his own feelings.  
  
The quiet was painful; it started to rain harder outside, the droplets pounding against the window, and belatedly, Baekhyun noticed that Kris was still soaked to the bone and freezing. His fingertips were pink from the cold and his hair was starting to dry off, frizzing slightly as the water dripped onto his shoulders.  
  
“Get changed, okay? You’ll freeze to death if you stay in those clothes,” said Baekhyun, pushing Chanyeol’s old clothes into his arms. “They’re Chanyeol’s so they should fit okay. I’m gonna get some blankets.”  
  
He resisted the urge to look back as he went into his bedroom, pulling the covers off his bed and grabbing a few extra blankets from the linen cupboard. He could hear the rustle of clothes from the living room and his mind went numb. Who exactly was Kris? He’d had the sneaking premonition that Kris was part of the seedy underground world that no one talked openly about because it just didn’t make sense that Kris was so rich when all he did was fuck and sleep all day and that he was adamant in not telling Baekhyun who he truly was, and yet there was a part of him that refused to believe it, that refused to give up hope because surely, there had to be some other reason for it. But they weren’t in a relationship anyway and Baekhyun shouldn’t have cared so much, which didn’t explain why it hurt him so much to see Kris get hurt.  
  
When he got back, Kris was still changing, his shirt left in a soggy pile on the floor and replaced with Chanyeol’s old tee, and was midway through peeling his jeans off as Baekhyun dumped the blankets onto the couch. He dimmed the lights; the room was dark and Kris didn’t bother putting the shorts on as he pushed Baekhyun down onto the sofa so he was lying down. He could see the outline of Kris’s figure above him, straddling his hips, from the glow of the moon through the windows, and Kris leaned down to curl his hand around his neck, breathing softly.  
  
His hips pushed and grinded through his boxers against Baekhyun’s pyjama pants and he stroked Baekhyun’s nape, making Baekhyun shudder into his touch. Kris snuck a hand under the hem of Baekhyun’s sweater and placed it flat on Baekhyun’s stomach to steady himself, his fingertips pressing over the marks he’d peppered there just days before, and their mouths pressed against each other, kissing softly and chastely.  
  
Usually Baekhyun wasn’t one who was lost for words, but neither of them spoke, only letting out soft moans and gasps as Kris tugged his cock out of his pants and took them both in one hand, long fingers easily wrapping around their girths and pumping slowly whilst Baekhyun held him by the hips, helping him to rock in his lap. Keeping his eyes open to see Kris’s lips part as he panted and groaned, Baekhyun drank in the sight of him, etching it into his memory because he had a feeling that this was more than just sex for Kris. It felt like a goodbye. Kris had moved one hand up to link his fingers with Baekhyun, settling into the dips between his knuckles, and held on as if there were no tomorrow. Held on like if he’d let go, he’d lose Baekhyun. As if he’d just been found and he couldn’t bear to get lost again.  
  
Every time they fucked, Baekhyun could never get over how gorgeous Kris looked. He was in a league of his own—Baekhyun was mesmerised by the beads of sweat that trickled from his temple down his throat, gleaming in the light, and his tongue peeking out to swipe at his lips, dry from moaning. His chest heaved with every breath as he canted into his own hand, his cock pressed flush against Baekhyun’s, and his thighs were tensed, the muscle beneath his skin firm. He was drenched in the moonlight and Baekhyun caught his gaze as his eyes fluttered open, dark and clear and beautiful, and Baekhyun wanted nothing more than to submerge himself in his stare.  
  
Unfortunately, timing was not one of Baekhyun’s strong points and in the second that he averted his gaze, certain that if he kept staring at Kris, he wouldn’t be able to look away, he spotted the jacket that Kris had given him the first time they’d met hanging up on the rack by the door.  
  
“Ah, your coat—“ he blurted out, but Kris cut him off by sealing their lips together, hand pumping their dicks faster and twisting slightly, moaning into Baekhyun’s mouth.  
  
“Don’t care,” said Kris, “don’t want it back. Keep it.”  
  
“But,” Baekhyun panted as his stomach tensed, Kris’s thumb digging into the slit of his cock and sliding wetly down with precome slick on his hands, “it’s expensive…”  
  
Kris crushed their lips together harder, kissing him feverishly, and his hair was starting to stick to his skin, still damp with the rain and sweat. He looked desperate and beautiful and right then, Baekhyun was convinced that he could’ve said it. Could’ve said _I’m in love with you,_ but Kris was growling in his ear, voice deep and husky, “I don’t give a shit,” and Baekhyun squeezed his eyes shut, bucking his hips up for more friction on his cock.  
  
“I don’t want it back,” said Kris, “’cause I know that I’d just think of you every time I’d wear it. It’d smell like you, it would’ve touched you, would’ve had your skin on it, and it’d be so cruel to have the memory of you on me, just taunting me that I can’t have you with me. Because I know that”—he paused, breathing deeply—“I wouldn’t stop thinking of you ‘cause it’d remind me of you every second of the day. Because it’d make me think of you being fucked so well by my cock, think of how pretty your face gets when I fill you up, and how your lips are so fucking perfect when you scream out my name. Because it’d remind me of you and everything that I love about you, like the tiny mole on your lip and your smile and the way your eyes crinkle up when you’re thinking too hard and the way that you’d found me. And well, it fits you so perfectly that I don’t think it’d ever look the same on me.”  
  
Baekhyun’s heart was thudding against his ribs, loud and fast, and he couldn’t breathe. His chest was tight and his stomach fluttered, making him shiver to his veins. “Why do you—why are you always saying these things?” he said quietly as Kris traced the curve of his jaw and gently wiped his thumb over Baekhyun’s cheek. Belatedly, Baekhyun noticed his cheeks were wet, but he wasn’t crying.  
  
 _Oh._  
  
“Because,” said Kris, “I’m so fucking in love with you.”  
  
And when things happened in spades, Baekhyun woke up in the morning and realised that finally, Kris had gotten the hang of one-night stands.  
  
The room was empty, and Baekhyun was alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**iv.**  
  
  
After that night, Kris stopped turning up.  
  
Just like that. He just disappeared. Baekhyun hadn’t seen him for three weeks, like he’d fallen off the surface of the world, and there were no more accidental meetings. No more pizza deliveries. No more touches, soft kisses, whispered _I love yous_. It left an unintelligible emptiness inside Baekhyun, one that was stupid and irrational because after all, his thing with Kris was supposed to be a one-time occurrence, only that it’d gone on for more than one night and Baekhyun had thought that they’d had something. He’d finally admitted to himself that yeah, what they had was more than just sex, more than just a superficial crush—it was something deeper, something akin to, or maybe even, love, and maybe if he’d just said it before, maybe if he’d just had the fucking _courage_ to bloody say the goddamn three words that Kris loved saying to him so much, then Kris wouldn’t have left.  
  
He didn’t believe that Kris was just playing with him because there was no way someone could’ve faked the way Kris looked at him, the way Kris said his name and murmured into his ear at night. He didn’t believe that Kris used him, like an expendable pawn, and rather than being mad at Kris for leaving, he was mad at himself for such a coward. The thing he had been searching for had been within his grasp and he’d let it go so easily. Kris was a chance, and he’d been too scared to take it.  
  
It was lonely without Kris. Baekhyun passed by the denim jacket and the red umbrella every morning and there was a pang of loneliness in his chest, corroding him from the inside out. He thought about what Kris had said, that it would be so cruel to have the memory but not the touch, and finally, he understood what Kris had meant by that. It was a taunt, and once he’d had a taste of Kris, he yearned for more and more and more. The memory wasn’t enough to sustain him, would never be as good as the real thing, and some nights, Baekhyun would sink under his covers in his bed and remember what Kris’s hands had felt like on his skin, what Kris’s lips had felt like on his own, and it made him long for Kris in an insatiable want.  
  
This had been transient; Kris had disappeared as easily as he had appeared and Baekhyun had no means of finding him. They’d never exchanged numbers and although Baekhyun knew where Kris lived, he wasn’t sure if it was right to turn up at his apartment. That was the beauty of their relationship, thought Baekhyun—the meetings that were somehow accidental and purposeful at the same time, like they were meant to bump into each other in the street, as if they were searching for each other, and now, Baekhyun was lost again.  
  
At first, he did it for the sex. Kris was hot and Baekhyun had wanted to fuck him. Simple as. Then, things got more complicated and he’d started like Kris and he had liked that he had been the one to find Kris, to drag him out of the haze of loneliness and be his sun. And now, Baekhyun wondered, really, who was the one that had been lost? Who was the one that had found the other? Because now, the only thing he knew was that without Kris, things wouldn’t ever be the same.  
  
“Hey, are you even listening!?”  
  
Baekhyun looked up and the blonde kid sitting in the huge chair in front of him frowned, letting out an angry breath.  
  
And oh, Baekhyun had forgotten to mention, two things: one, he was kind of, sort of, being kidnapped, and two, kidnappings were surprisingly good for having Deep and Philosophical thoughts about life.  
  
They’d ambushed him whilst he had been walking home—two boys, younger than him by a few years. One had bleach-blonde hair and a sharp face, who currently looking bored and preoccupying himself with jabbing the other boy, a brunette with tanned skin and a deceivingly childlike smile, in the back, and Baekhyun had been terrified, screaming his head off when they’d unbound the gag around his mouth in the dank basement they’d taken him to. He’d stopped when he realised that no one could hear him, that no one was around to help, and the only thing to do was to wait and hope that Chanyeol wasn’t too busy fucking around with Owl Bitch to notice he was gone.  
  
“Hey, I said, are you even listening?” the one in the chair said, glaring at him. His looks were angelic but there was something in his smile that was feral and animalistic. The cute and innocent ones were always the freaks.  
  
“Luhan,” said the blonde one, “he’s probably scared and lonely. He’s probably gonna piss himself if you keep yelling at him and I don’t want to be the one to nag Jongin to clean it up. So stop.”  
  
“Shut up, you poop-head,” said Jongin, turning around to bat Sehun’s foot away.  
  
“Wow, great trash talk,” said Baekhyun, “in the _1970s_ , maybe. Did you think of that yourself or did you just plagiarise from Godfather 2?”  
  
Jongin shot him a cold look and Baekhyun simpered back. Jongin deserved it for dragging him into this dump; he was the one who had tied Baekhyun’s hands together behind his back with rope, double-knotted. Dammit, Boy Scouts.  
  
Sehun snorted. “I like this one. Yifan has good taste,” he said. “He’s really outdone himself this time.”  
  
“Wait,” said Baekhyun. “Yifan? Who’s that? And wait, why am I even here? You haven’t told me anything.”  
  
“You really don’t know anything?” Sehun asked. “Aw, I feel kind of bad if we have to kill him now.”  
  
“Huh? K-kill me?” Baekhyun stuttered. Oh shit, the situation was a lot worse than he’d thought.  
  
“Fanfan has caused a lot of trouble for me,” said Luhan, who seemed to be the boss. He pissed Baekhyun off, sitting there on his throne like he was something more than a lowlife thug, and then he took out a gun and unlatched the safety lock with a click that echoed menacingly in the room. Fuck. Okay, maybe a little more than just a lowlife thug. A sociopathic, homicidal lowlife thug. “So you’re our hostage, little wolf. Fanfan’s gonna have to pay up if he wants you back.”  
  
“Maybe if I’m feeling nice,” said Jongin, twirling a knife between his fingers, “I might just take it easy on you. Just rough you up a bit, y’know. You’d look so much prettier with bruises.”  
  
“God, Jongin,” said Sehun. “That’s fucking creepy. Luhan, where’d you find this one? From the fuckin’ loony bin?”  
  
“It sounded cooler on T.V,” Jongin said remorsefully.  
  
“Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” Baekhyun said, voice bordering on hysterical. It was starting to set in; he was kidnapped and this wasn’t just a regular mugging. This was on another level entirely and he had no control, trapped in a room with three potential murderers. “Who the hell is Yifan?”  
  
“Perhaps it would help if I called him ‘Kris’ instead,” said Luhan, and he smiled, canines glinting in the light, when Baekhyun’s eyes widened and he inhaled sharply. He had been dreading this. So Kris was part of an underground gang. Had everything Kris said been a lie? And he’d believed Kris so easily too—oh god. He felt sick, his stomach jumping up to his throat. “Ah, so he didn’t tell you anything. So cruel, Fanfan is.”  
  
“Please tell me what the hell is going on,” said Baekhyun. He was starting to shake. “Please.”  
  
  
  
  
By the time Kris had arrived, Baekhyun had heard everything.  
  
“Baekhyun!” said Kris, immediately starting to rush over when someone held him back. Short, big eyes and a surly look on his face. Kyungsoo. “Get off me, Kyungsoo. Baekhyun, are you okay!?”  
  
“Kris,” said Baekhyun hoarsely. “Did you really lie to me? Was everything Luhan just told me true?”  
  
“What the fuck did you tell him,” hissed Kris through gritted teeth, glaring at Luhan.  
  
Luhan just shrugged and smiled. “The truth,” he said. “You can’t hide it forever, Fanfan. You were so mean to Baekhyun. I can’t believe you lied to him. What else did you lie about, hmm? Were you really telling the truth when you said you loved him? Or were you just using him like you use everyone else? ‘Cause you’re the king, aren’t you, and everyone else are just your pawns? Well, now”—he pointed the gun at Baekhyun, lazily showing his pointed teeth as he grinned wolfishly—“it’s checkmate, baby.”  
  
“You’re an asshole, Luhan,” said Kris. “Don’t fucking touch him. I’ve got this entire area surrounded. I’ll blow your brains out even before you can pull that fucking trigger.”  
  
“Kris…” Baekhyun said again, grabbing his attention. “Please, tell me the truth. How do you know Luhan?”  
  
“Two years ago,” said Kris, “Luhan was the lovely, kind soul who made me fall in love with him and broke my heart by trying to steal all my money and run me over. So you can see why we don’t get along.”  
  
“Two years ago,” Baekhyun echoed. There was something about that—what had happened two years ago? He’d just arrived in the city, starting college, and—  
  
He stopped.  
  
Kris smiled sadly at him. “Do you remember now?”  
  
Baekhyun remembered. Two years ago, early April. He had been on his way back to his dorm on campus—roomed with Chanyeol back then, too—when there’d been a car-crash. The skid of the tyres on the floor had left black streaks on the road and he’d thought it’d been a hit-and-run by a careless driver, drunk or something. And a boy had been left on the ground, unconscious and bleeding. Under normal circumstances, Baekhyun would’ve let someone else deal with it, but no one seemed to be helping, keeping a wide circle clear of the body on the floor, as if they were scared. And Baekhyun had been the one to call the ambulance, the one who had sat with the boy as he mumbled out unintelligibly and cried, the one who had wiped away the tears with his sleeves even though he’d gotten blood all over them. The one who visited every day because for some reason, he felt responsible for this boy who no one seemed to care about. The one who looked like a poor, lost puppy with his lost eyes and the bandages wrapped around his head, sleeping in a coma for two weeks when Baekhyun visited every day, waking up for three, and disappearing when Baekhyun turned up with flowers and cupcakes.  
  
Baekhyun remembered it all right. He just didn’t know it had been Kris.  
  
“That was…you?” he breathed out.  
  
“Yeah, well,” said Kris, “my face was wrapped up in fucking bandages half the time so really, I wasn’t surprised when you didn’t remember me. Maybe a part of me hoped that you would, but you never did. It was just wishful thinking on my part.”  
  
“Oh, boohoo,” said Luhan. “He saved you. How romantic. What would’ve been more romantic is if you’d just given me the fucking money and let me kill you before you caused so much trouble for poor Baekhyunnie over here.”  
  
“Oh, shut up, Luhan,” Kris said. “Everyone knows you’re a fucking crazy psycho. Baekhyun’s not gonna believe a word you say.”  
  
Luhan tsked, shaking his head. “And he’s going to believe you after you lied to him like that?”  
  
“Kris, who are you really? Please tell me…the truth,” Baekhyun said quietly.  
  
“I really am sorry,” Kris said. “I just did it to protect you ‘cause it was better if you didn’t know.” He scuffed the floor with his foot. “You know about the underground gangs and stuff, right? The boss of one of the biggest Triad families, the Wu family…is my dad.  
  
Luhan probably already told you—and it’s probably the only thing he hasn’t lied about—but my real name is Wu Yifan. I’m the son, the heir, which is why people were probably staring and, like, freaking the fuck out when I had the accident. But you—you didn’t know, and it was so refreshing. It was so nice to just be with someone who didn’t know because you didn’t want me for my money or for my status or to destroy my family”—he glared at Luhan, who beamed at him—“and it was just…nice. I liked it. I’d been looking for you for two years because I wanted to say thank you to you. I’d been searching for you, and when you didn’t remember—well, that didn’t really matter because I knew I’d still love you anyway. I’ve always loved you. For two years. And I still do.”  
  
Baekhyun closed his eyes. He opened them again. Nope, not a dream. Not a nightmare that he’d wake up from in a cold sweat. This was real. This was happening. And he didn’t know if he could handle it.  
  
“It that all true…?”  
  
“I swear I didn’t lie,” said Kris. “I just—I just didn’t tell you the entire truth. I’m sorry. I swear to god, all the other things I said were true. Everything I’ve ever said to you is true. My dad really does own a zoo. I really do have a pet lizard. And I really do love you.”  
  
A laugh bubbled up in Baekhyun’s throat and then it spilled out. He laughed, even though there was nothing funny about the situation except that he’d been fucking lied to all this time, except that Kris was the boy from two fucking years ago, and here it was, all back to haunt him. Kris stared at him and it was the same look that Baekhyun had seen the first time they’d met. The very first time they’d met. Lost eyes in the ambulance. He hadn’t found Kris after all.  
  
Kris had been searching for him all this time. Kris was the one who had found him.  
  
“Look who’s from the loony bin now,” Jongin muttered, and Sehun kicked him to shut him up.  
  
“Oh my god, shut up. This is getting interesting,” Sehun said. “Luhan, you are one fucked up guy. I’m glad I’m on your side.”  
  
“Thank you, Sehun. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. See, Fanfan, you could learn a thing or two from Sehunnie. Honesty is the best policy,” said Luhan. His eyes suddenly narrowed, turning hard. “And now, enough games. Hand it over, Yifan, or Baekhyun gets it.”  
  
Kris looked at Baekhyun for one last time before he faced Luhan. “Yixing. Kyungsoo,” he said, taking his gun out from its holster on his belt.  
  
The lightbulb on the ceiling was flickering. The dim glow lit up Kris’s high cheekbones, his sharp eyes and his strong arms, sleeves rolled up, and the shadows were dark in the dips of his clavicles. He stood tall and confident, eyes steady, and this—  
  
No, there was no question about it. This was Baekhyun’s Kris. Strong. Tall. Brave.  
  
“Yessir,” said Yixing, one of Kris’s men dressed in a suit. He had a dimple on one of his cheeks and he smiled at Baekhyun kindly. “Where to?”  
  
“Someplace safe,” said Kris. “I trust your judgement.”  
  
“Gotcha,” said Yixing. “You ready?”  
  
“As I’ll ever be,” Kris said, nodding. “Kyungsoo?”  
  
Kyungsoo’s finger hovered over the trigger of his own pistol and he smirked. “Let’s give these fuckers hell.”  
  
“Three,” said Kris. Jongin steadied himself, his aura changing completely from innocence to a hardened assassin, and Sehun tensed next to him, hand around his own firearm. Luhan smiled leisurely as if this whole thing was just a game, but Baekhyun saw his hands reach behind him, curling around his guns. “Two.”  
  
“One,” mouthed Baekhyun along with Kris, and he hoped Kyungsoo was right.  
  
He hoped that they’d give those fuckers hell.  
  
Yixing had whisked him away even before the first shot had been fired, tugging him along with surprising strength in his skinny frame, and he’d practically thrown Baekhyun in the backseat of his BMW, driving down the road at a speed that probably violated every road sign in the world. Baekhyun felt numb. It was too much to take in at once. Kris had lied to him—no, how had he put it? He hadn’t told the entire truth. Baekhyun still—he still believed that Kris loved him because he felt it. He felt the tug of Kris’s magnetism, of his gravity, and he was still drawn to Kris. Kris was everything he was not; Kris loved him, had loved him from the start, and it was time Baekhyun returned the favour.  
  
But he wasn’t sure if he could face Kris again. Wasn’t sure if he was ready to face Kris.  
  
“You know,” Yixing commented from the front seat. Baekhyun looked up from his feet and saw Yixing beaming at him in the mirror. They were driving at a leisurely speed now, having gotten far enough away, and he had no idea where Yixing was taking him. Somewhere safe, Kris had said. At least there was no danger of dying before he’d even get there, Baekhyun thought. “Yifan is a great guy.”  
  
“I bet you get paid to say that,” Baekhyun mumbled.  
  
Yixing laughed. It was a nice laugh, soft and pleasant like windchimes. “Maybe,” he said, “but honestly, even if I weren’t, it’d still be true. Yifan is a really nice guy. And maybe sometimes he doesn’t quite know how to show it and maybe sometimes he’ll be a bit blunt and a bit awkward, but really, he’s the nicest guy ever. I’ve known him since we were kids. Whatever he said to you, I know he meant it. Every single bit of it.”  
  
Baekhyun looked outside the window. It was night-time. He thought about Kris pushing him onto the bed and murmuring into his ear and stroking his hair. He thought about Kris’s lips against his jaw and the way Kris made his heart beat so fast. He thought about Kris, and then he wanted to stop thinking about Kris because it hurt.  
  
“If he’s so nice, then why did he lie?”  
  
“Sometimes,” said Yixing, “people do things they don’t want to if it means the best for someone that they love. Yifan doesn’t really have many friends. I mean, he has us, of course, but that’s different. He doesn’t really have anyone outside the family to call a friend and I think he’s just a really lonely guy. He spent so much time seeking you out. I think he really wanted to find you because he was really grateful to you, and even if it didn’t involve sex, I think he still wanted to be your friend anyway. Because the thing you have to understand about Yifan is that he is the most stubborn person in the entire world. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, we’re still debating.”  
  
Baekhyun smiled to himself. That was true. Kris was ridiculously stubborn that he was in love with him—determined, even.  
  
“He told me he loved me,” said Baekhyun. “The first time we met. I mean, not the _first-_ first time, but you know.”  
  
“Yup, that sounds about right,” said Yixing, chuckling. He made a right turn, and it was so dark outside that Baekhyun couldn’t tell which of the tiny yellow dots were the stars and which ones were streetlights far away. “That sounds exactly like Yifan.” Yixing paused, crinkling his forehead in thought. “You know, we don’t get many outsiders into the family. Yifan and Luhan’d had their thing for nearly a year, maybe, and no one really approved of it ‘cause Luhan was—well, he was Luhan. And you know how those crazy types are. But Yifan was adamant and he just wouldn’t listen. So when he wanted to find you, it was largely opposed because of what had happened before. But Yifan said you were different. He said he already knew he was in love with you and that he had to find you no matter what because you had found him and he was so thankful. And you were a normal person, an ordinary person with an ordinary life, and perhaps it was selfish of him to pull you into this, but would it have really been better if you’d never had this at all?”  
  
Baekhyun didn’t need to think about the answer.  
  
“No,” he said. “No, it wouldn’t have been better.”  
  
“That is exactly what Yifan had said when we told him that,” said Yixing. “So you see, he honestly isn’t a bad guy. Whatever Luhan told you, it was probably a lie. He’s twisted.”  
  
“I just—“ said Baekhyun. “I just think I need time. To think about things. I’m still trying to understand it all. The pieces of the puzzle are fitting together, but I can’t see the picture yet. It’s still jagged and messy and I just…need time to sort everything out.”  
  
Yixing pulled to a stop. They were outside Baekhyun’s apartment block and Baekhyun looked up to see his apartment window dark. Chanyeol was probably already asleep, unaware of everything that had gone on. Lucky, thought Baekhyun. He wondered if Kyungsoo had already told him, but Chanyeol hadn’t told him anything and everyone knew Chanyeol couldn’t keep his mouth shut.  
  
“Here?” asked Baekhyun. “Is it…safe?”  
  
“The safest,” said Yixing. “It’s home. I’ll walk you up so it’ll be okay, and we’ve got men stationed around here for Chanyeol’s own protection too so if anything happens, we’ll be able to stop it in three seconds before they even know what’s hit them.”  
  
He opened the door and offered his hand to Baekhyun.  
  
“Shall we?” he said.  
  
“Yeah,” said Baekhyun.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 **v.**  
  
  
Apartment 3B.  
  
It had been a while since he’d seen those familiar words. Almost a month. It had been a long time since he’d seen Kris—his manager, Minseok, was kind enough to give him a temporary leave from work, and the way Minseok had smiled at him made him wonder if he was part of Kris’s massive empire—and he had used that time to think about things. What Kris really was. What this meant for them. What this meant for him.  
  
And, he had decided, that it meant nothing.  
  
He had decided that it didn’t change the fact that he loved Kris and Kris loved him. He had decided that he wanted a real relationship because although things were not quite okay, they were better, and he was ready. He would be brave too because he couldn’t do much to help Kris and this was the least he could do. He hadn’t fallen out of love with Kris; after all the time he’d spent trying to find out what they were, he’d finally realised it: they were a song he wanted to play on loop. They’d have to talk things out, though, and he wanted to get to know Kris better, even though he knew all of Kris’s deep, dark secrets, like the one where he was in love with a boy with soft hair and pretty fingers and a mole above his upper lip and the one where he had a pet lizard, and of course, Kris would have to make amends. Maybe he would just make Kris treat him out to lunch every day and buy more pizzas and maybe write his dissertation depending on how many budding scientists there were in his family.  
  
Or maybe he would just make Kris kiss him every day and tell him that he loved him. That was okay too.  
  
Baekhyun parked his motorcycle outside the apartment block and walked past the Mercedes, quickly checking his reflection in the windscreen mirror. Hair—carefully carelessly messed up. Clothes—denim jacket over his work uniform, and a red umbrella because it was raining outside. He was a bit wet because it was hard driving whilst holding an umbrella and two pizzas, but that didn’t matter.  
  
The elevator hummed as it rose to the third floor, time passing by slowly. When the doors slid open, he took a deep breath and stood outside 3B, raising his hand to knock.  
  
Kris opened the door after two thuds and immediately, his face broke out into a grin.  
  
“Hi,” said Kris.  
  
“Hi,” said Baekhyun. “You ordered pizza?”  
  
“I did, but I think I just got something even better,” Kris said. He was smiling so widely that Baekhyun was afraid that his face would split in half, but rather than worrying about Kris, he shoud’ve worried about himself instead because he was doing the same.  
  
Baekhyun handed the pizzas over and peered around Kris’s body to look into his apartment. Kyungsoo was sitting on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table, his phone balanced between his shoulder and his ear as he tapped furiously on his WiiU controller, trying to expertly manoeuvre Mario over a bridge of the fireball-puking plants. _Shut up, Chanyeol,_ he was saying, _I’ve told you, like, nine times already! You have to plug the WiiU in_ before _you turn it on, you dumbshit! No, I’m not just being tsundere. No, it’s not a cute, endearing nickname. No, I am not your boyfriend! You’re my bitch. Goodbye. Hang up. No, you hang up. No, you hang up. No, you hang up. Okay, I’m hanging up._  
  
“Hi Kyungsoo,” said Baekhyun, waving at him.  
  
“Oh, it’s you,” said Kyungsoo. “It’s about time. I’ve been listening to this guy”—he jabbed his thumb in Kris’s direction—“whine about you for the past, like, ten centuries. A man can only hear about how cute your mole is before he goes clinically insane.” He stopped for a second though, and smiled. “But welcome back. You caused me so much trouble. Don’t let it be in vain.”  
  
“Ignore him,” said Kris. He stood at the doorway awkwardly, shuffling from one foot to the other. He was dressed simply in a white T-shirt and sweatpants with fluffy socks on his feet, and he still looked beautiful, Baekhyun thought. There were a few plasters on his face—one by his mouth, one on his right cheek and one over the bridge of his nose—and a bandage around his arm, but other than that, he looked fine. He’d probably tripped on his way to the bathroom and smashed his nose on the toilet seat or something. Typical Kris.  
  
“Aren’t you going to invite him in?” Kyungsoo asked, gaze fixed on the television screen. “You’ve been complaining that you haven’t seen him for, quote, unquote, _Literally, like, nine million years!_ and yet you’re standing there like a gormless idiot.”  
  
“Shut up, Kyungsoo,” said Kris. He glanced at the floor, and then back at Baekhyun. “So, uh, you wanna come in for a bit?”  
  
“Yeah,” said Baekhyun. “My shift’s over now. You were my last order. I’ve got time to spare.”  
  
He stepped into the apartment and it was exactly like how he’d remembered it. Impossibly huge living room with an adjoining kitchen, the balcony overlooking the city and the cactus in the corner. It had grown a little bit bigger since he’d last been here. And oh, on the kitchen corner was a stack of around fifteen pizzas, all towered up on top of each other. Baekhyun could smell them from here. Anchovies.  
  
“Did you seriously order, like, ten pizzas until they sent me to deliver it?” Baekhyun asked, grinning.  
  
“No!” Kris huffed as Kyungsoo said, “Hell yeah.” Kris flipped Kyungsoo off and Kyungsoo snickered. “Maybe I was just really hungry, okay?”  
  
Baekhyun raised an eyebrow. “Even though you hate anchovies and you don’t eat greasy food ‘cause it’s not your style?”  
  
“Fine,” said Kris. “Maybe I did do that. Shut up.”  
  
His ears flushed red and he looked embarrassed. Baekhyun just laughed and stood up on his tip-toes to pat Kris on the head as if he was sulky child and kissed him on the mouth. It had been so long but it was no less electrifying, making Baekhyun’s heart and veins pulse with want.  
  
“You’re soaked through. So cold,” Kris mumbled into Baekhyun’s mouth, pushing back Baekhyun’s wet hair from his forehead so he could place a kiss there. Kris was tall, much taller than Baekhyun was, but Baekhyun kind of liked that. Kris had to crouch a little bit, and Baekhyun could feel their knees knocking together as Kris wrapped his arms around Baekhyun’s waist and pressed his hands to the small of Baekhyun’s back. He was warm and comforting and this felt like home.  
  
“Okay,” Baekhyun murmured, burying his face into the crook of Kris’s neck.  
  
“Okay?” said Kris. He tugged on the lapels of Baekhyun’s—no, _his_ —jacket and his lips quirked up into a lopsided grin. “You still have this. I’m glad.”  
  
“How could I throw it away? The sentimental value-game is too strong in this one,” Baekhyun replied. “Besides, the person who gave it to me…is a complete weirdo. Can you believe he confessed to me, like, the first time we met? Weird or what?”  
  
“Yeah,” said Kris, “really weird. You’d better not go running off with him instead of me.”  
  
“Hm, well,” said Baekhyun, “let’s test how well you can warm me up and then we’ll see.”  
  
“Oh god, you guys. Spoiler alert for the vomit-inducing cheese please,” said Kyungsoo, feigning a barf. “Get a room.”  
  
Baekhyun was more than happy to oblige when Kris tugged him towards the bedroom, and half an hour later, sated and happy, he heard grinned when he heard Kyungsoo’s anguished cries.


End file.
